"Back then it was very, very difficult to stand up and surf on those things."

Surfing and Hollywood, oh are there any couples more awkward, more out of step? Maybe Elon Musk and Grimes. Maybe Elon Musk and Amber Heard and Cara Delevigne but it is a very thin maybe.

Hollywood latched onto our Pastime of Kings in the post-war era when sun-tanned, fit, blonde boys represented hope in a healthy future. Surfing, in return, fell right back in love with the spotlight and the two have stumbled around the dance floor since, groping, grabbing, stepping on each other’s toes.

From the beach blanket bingos to stilted surf talk, In God’s Hands to Jimmy Slade, the Pipe scene in Blue Crush featuring Noah Johnson in drag to Snake Plissken ripping a tsunami down Wilshire Blvd.

Escape from L.A. may not have reached the acclaim of Escape from New York but it was a fun enough film just released on Blu-ray with many interviews. In one, the computer graphics supervisor, David Jones, shoulders responsibility for the surf bit, saying, “It was my idea and we executed it and it was a bad idea.”

But why?

Jones blames the 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.’ 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.”

You’ll recall our recent chat with the wonderful inventor of the Flowrider, Tom Lochtefeld, and it is a shame that he wasn’t involved in the production as he could have lent much expertise. I must say, though, compared to the slightly sized up Teahupoo scene in the Point Break remake, the Flowrider looks positively fine.

No?

Grace under fire.

It is a tragedy any time a shark eats a person but much more tragic if that person is beautiful and unspeakably tragic if an entire beautiful family finds its end down a ruthless gullet but maximum tragedy nearly occurred last week just off Australia’s Bulli Beach.

The reef, just south of Sydney, is known for consistent enough surf though on that frightful day the Hanleys were all out for a family snorkel.

Sister, Taia, explains how she saw the beast getting closer and closer and alerted brother, Baxter, who didn’t think it was real. Father, Scott, heard one of the children scream and made his way over in order to calm them down and plan an escape as they were roughly 150 meters off shore.

Brother, Jobi, gave his speargun to his dad but kept his knife handy in order to protect his sister, knowing full well that a knife beats a fist when it comes to inflicting damage.

Blessedly, they all made it back to shore safety and were praised by local authorities for keeping cool heads and their eyes on the shark and have already been back in the water since the encounter.

Yet have you ever seen a family so beautiful?

So gorgeous?

I imagine, when the film Hanelys vs. Shark comes out next year, that Brad Pitt will play father Scott while the children will play themselves and go on to wonderful, fulfilling careers in Hollywood.

Quickly, though, what will play the shark?

Is it a white?

A spinner?

Other?

Help!