Great White and friends. | Photo: @crazy_nature2.0

Just in: Watch as a twelve-foot Great White interacts, peacefully, with a group of surfers!

Derek Rielly

By

Terror turns to joy etc…

Here’s the wildest bit of vision you’re probs gonna see today – a twelve-foot White swimming through a group of surfers during a clear-water middle of the day sesh fifty feet or so from the beach at Plettenberg Bay in Western Province, South Africa.

The joint, say local authorities, is crawling with Great Whites because of seals and fish coming close to shore but adds it’s a “normal aggregation” this time of year.

I’m still chasing the fourteen-year-old kid who snatched this drone footage to fill in the blanks, why he didn’t swoop down and maybe let his brothers know there was an animal famous for mangling human limbs examining their offerings a little too closely, so we must draw, for the moment, from our own observations.

One, ain’t it crazy how long it takes the group to see the White?

Two, its languid swim through a potential food source and, three, the VAL swinging his arms over like a pendulum who can’t catch a wave to escape.

According to Plettenberg Bay man Michael Herbst, ‘These guys said they had no idea the Great White was there until one of them yelled ‘shark’. They said they came out the water so fast and the beach was cleared by the lifeguards. For these surfers, it was their lucky day and they will never forget what happened out there as it is on film”.

Over the past ten years, twelve people have been killed by sharks in South Africa, five by Whites.

More to come if the kid checks his messages.

(In the meantime, maybe get one of these tourniquets if you’re kicking around White neighbourhoods. And I don’t mean Beverly Hills etc.)

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SPEACHLESS!!!! @discoversharks

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Is surfing society's canary in the coal mine? Is the VAL movement a chilling portent of what happens when anarchy and Marxist ideals of "equality" combine to smash existing structures? | Photo: @sealtooth

Former world number four Dane Reynolds releases long-awaited treatise on America’s civil unrest: “Are we pawns in a massive scheme? How is it going to end?”

Derek Rielly

By

Don't know what to think? Ask your favourite surfer…

A gift, this afternoon, in the form of a seven-hundred essay on America’s civil unrest from the still-best surfer in the world, Ventura’s Danny Reynolds.

Reynolds, a former world number four (2011) famous for his “go for broke” style of surfing, squares up to the hydra-headed movements, Marxism, Anarchism, Racism and so forth, that have turned parts of the country that saved the world from European fascism seventy-five years ago, into lawless Mogadishus.

“I’ve decided to take this moment to open up a conversation,” writes Reynolds, a thirty-four-year-old millionaire and daddy of three, who goes on to say that social media has “gone mad” and that “misinformation is spreading like a disease.”

Then, a plaintive wail,

Can anyone tell me what the hell is actually going on out there?  Is it a coincidence that all this chaos is happening during an election year? I can’t help to think about how supposed Russian operatives used social media to create division and chaos in America during our last presidential election. 

It’s really not that hard, Anyone can invent a fictional story around an event or a person, connect a few dots, post on youtube or facebook or a meme on instagram or twitter and someone will believe it. Post something real enticing and it just might go viral.

Evidence?

Shit even the president doesn’t care to fact check before posting.

Social media is an open stage for spreading false narratives.

Are things more bizarre and unfathomably scripted than we can imagine? Are we pawns in a massive scheme? 

Or is it mostly straightforward… to use the current situation as a reference – an unfortunate set of events… coronavirus spread to a human in a wet market in China and is highly infectious so it spread like wildfire into a global pandemic and then two months later a fucking heartless person with a badge got recorded abusing his power and ultimately killing a black man over a misdemeanour which triggered global protests and a movement for equality and police reform which will ultimately be a positive change?

I know the reality lies somewhere in-between… I wish to believe that for the most part politicians are good people that look out for the greater good, and create policies that benefit everyone from the disenfranchised to the wealthy.

But that’s a fairy tale, 

It’s all a fucking mess man. 

I sympathize with the black community, who have been suffering from systemic racism since being stolen from their homes and shipped to America as slaves 100’s of years ago. Some basic reading if you need a reminder –

Slave patrols.

Jim Crow laws.

Slave patrols to traffic stops.

I sympathize with police. Policing is the last line of work I would want to do – confronting people every day who are breaking the law. Enforcing minor infractions would just be sad. Dealing with people committing real infractions would be sketchy, being a police officer dealing with sketchy situations day in and day out has to warp your perspective on how to treat people fairly.

There’s people everywhere with poor judgement and no moral compass, angry fearful self absorbed egotistical mean and judgmental people. How people with those traits can become our leaders and law enforcers I don’t know. 

I don’t have any answers, I try to think logically, rationally, critically, vote, support businesses that support causes I believe in, treat everyone with respect, teach my kids good values… but it doesn’t feel like enough…

Pandemic, protests, lies, rallies, conspiracies, corruption, environment, justice…

How is it going to end?

And can we discuss these issues without everyone shitting their pants in anger?

(Click here for a sizzling little sesh with Matt McCabe, “metabolism of a rat”, and Reynolds, “still fairly nimble for 200 pounds and never stretching.”)

 

"Here's lookin at you, kid."

Experience: Great White Shark’s “human-like” features fill onlookers with powerful sense of poetic “oneness with the universe!”

Chas Smith

By

"Drink to me only with thine eyes..."

Dour biologists and animal rights advocates regularly warn against layering our human qualities over animals. “Anthropomorphism” they argue clouds nature’s reality and creates wrong-headed approaches to conservation and care for our lovable furry friends.

Well, I understand but sometimes an animal so human-like, so handsome, crashes into our shared psyche, taking our collective breath away.

And here we see two fishermen gifted the thrill of a lifetime when a giant Great White shark stares with eyes full of humanity, demonstrating a spirit so strong as to draw tears from even the most hardened observer.

Oh how they make me swoon, how they fill my heart with poetry. If I was lucky enough to be on that fishing boat, I would first sing sonnets, like the fishermen, but also write instant poetry to the Great White.

“Drink to me only with thine eyes…” I would say “And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I’ll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise doth ask a drink divine; But might I of Jove’s nectar sup, I would not change for thine.”

Do you think Great White sharks like poetry?

Do you?

Breaking: Dirk Ziff, owner of World Surf League, also co-owner of plantation that once housed over 500 slaves but is now America’s “most expensive – and snootiest – private club!”

Chas Smith

By

"The price of a membership is $1 million. It costs $85,000 per year after that."

History is a real bastard and a special bastard when viewed from the gimlet eyed high pass of our future, where we, of course, dwell. Everything clear and pristine. Our signals of virtue shine in the sky like gorgeous beacons, unfettered, unchained, clear and pristine.

A fine thing that we are so good.

Speaking of, our World Surf League released a statement this just passed International Surfing Day which declared “Surfing is for everyone” and committed to “Build a diverse and inclusive work environment, advancing equality, cultivating where everyone feels welcome.”

etc.

Contributions have been pledged to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and continued support of the Creative Futures Collective where “We believe someone’s current circumstance shouldn’t dictate their future.”

etc.

A very fine thing.

As you well know, publishing billionaire and co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff purchased the Association of Surfing Professionals for free in 2013, or thereabouts, rebranding it World Surf League in 2015.

The League has had four CEOs since, Dirk Ziff himself as acting CEO in 2017 while winning his co-Waterperson acclaim.

The very same Dirk Ziff, you may not know as well, also co-owns Cherokee Plantation, a “Spanish-moss draped monument to selective southern hospitality” in South Carolina that Forbes also calls “the most expensive–and the snootiest–private club in America.”

Cherokee Plantation was built in 1690 as part of a land grant to Joseph Blake, who cultivated rice amongst other things. His son Daniel inherited the property and, “as slave owners go” was considered “a pretty swell guy” who “despised affectation and looked with perfect contempt upon all snobbery.”

He built a church on his property, enjoyed by his 559 slaves, as well as providing clothing and moderate working hours.

The plantation was badly damaged during the Civil War but rehabilitated, changed hands a few times, and today co-belongs to co-Waterperson Dirk Ziff.

Forbes continues:

The price of a membership is $1 million. It costs $85,000 per year after that. Some of what Cherokee offers is familiar country club stuff, such as horseback riding, tennis, fishing and golf. But at Cherokee, there’s no such thing as a tee time. Golfers on the 18-hole Scottish links may find their only company is an alligator that has lumbered onto the lawn from the Combahee River. And members who hunt quail can use a $100,000 Purdey house gun and enjoy an outdoor banquet–complete with tablecloths and candelabra. In the evening, members and guests are invited to pluck a stogie from the walk-in humidor in the grand plantation house. When guests climb into bed, they find a flannel-covered hot water bottle tucked between the sheets, even in summer.

A very, very fine thing and it must be assumed that contributions are equally pledged to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Creative Futures Collective.

Comment has been requested from his World Surf League.

More as the story develops.

Revealed: Flowrider not to blame for “janky” tsunami surf scene in Escape from L.A. but rather damned skateboarders Tony Hawk and Chris Miller!

Chas Smith

By

They wreck everything.

Skateboarding has been a little bastard since surfing pushed him out of the womb in those halcyon Southern California post-war years. Imagine how much better off we’d be without those four wheels and a deck of sin. Imagine how much happier.

We’d be able to name our grabs and airs for one. Instead of “method” and “melon” etc. we could use the more sensible “spinny” and “twirly.”

Also, Escape from L.A.’s tsunami surfing scene would be a cinematic high water mark, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Two days ago, we heard from computer graphics supervisor David Jones who was inspired by the newly invented Tom Lochetefeld Flowrider.

“I’d seen reference to a standing wave surf park in Texas. You see them on cruise ships now where you blast water up a wave shaped thing and you can surf by basically standing in the middle of the curve and the water’s rushing under you so it’s supporting the board. The first of these had just opened in Texas and got on the nightly news. I said, ‘Oh, it’s no problem, chaps. We’ll just go down to Texas, put green screens up behind the standing wave and shoot it there and then we can comp it in. It’ll be marvelous.’”

Well, as the story continues, “That’s what we did. The thing that I could’ve taken into account is back then it was very, very difficult to stand up and surf on those things. Professional surfers couldn’t do it. Only the guys that worked at the Texas place could do it. They looked janky. It did look janky.”

As revealed just last evening via secret email, however, the Flowrider was not to blame but rather the stunt doubles surfing the Flowrider.

Who were they?

Professional skateboarders Tony Hawk and Chris Miller.

Of course it looked janky. Skateboarders don’t understand fluid dynamics at all. They don’t understand much of anything else either, as it goes.

Hawk is currently teaching a “master class” on tricks etc.

Not recommended.

Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by @theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
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