Two-time world surfing champion John John Florence gives hell to VAL actors in stinging critique of movie surfing!

Derek Rielly

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Florence skewers Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Blue Crush, Point Break, Orange County, Chasing Mavericks, Lilo and Stitch and Surf's Up.

The two-time world surfing champion, John John Florence, has appeared on an episode of GQ’s Breakdown where, with impressive earnestness, he examines the surfing in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Blue Crush, Point Break, Orange County, Chasing Mavericks, Lilo and Stitch and Surf’s Up.

Dressed in a fuchsia Florence Marine X crew neck that matches the radiances of his sun-beaten skin, the twenty-eight-year-old Hawaiian, whose net worth is twelve million dollars, delivers an eloquent potpourri of the petals fallen from the flowers of Hollywood.

Although released yesterday, the episode was clearly filmed over one year ago, Florence referring to the great Derek Ho, who died in July, 2020, in the present tense, although I too like to think Uncle Dez will live forever. 

A little long at sixteen minutes, but Florence has a warm sincere smile and speaks without restraint.

Surfer and marathon swimmer “caught in jaws of a Great White” near San Francisco describes bite as “like a mosquito sting…Their teeth are razor sharp and cut through the skin with ease”!

Derek Rielly

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"The leg of the wet suit bulged with blood."

Three days ago, surfer and marathon swimmer Nemanja Spasojevic was hit by a Great White while diving for crabs off Gray Whale Cove State Beach, south of San Francisco. 

Now, in a written account about the attack which he shared to SFGATE, Spasojevic, thirty-eight, has described the pain of being hit by the White as being like a “mosquito bite… more like curiosity bite (than) attack.” 

Happy Nemanja Spasojevic at Zuck Gen Hozzy.

Spasojevic, who was carrying a GoPro but didn’t film the attack or encounter, says he had just stuffed an undersized crab back and was looking for a bigger one when he felt a little pain in his leg and came face to face with the Great White, which he estimates as between six and eight feet long.

He couldn’t see its white underbelly but saw its distinctive nose and black eyes. 

“At that point I just started kicking with my back turned towards rocks frantically, Hoping if it strikes again it will hit the fins. I reached white water area where water was bashing on the rocks. I did think it’s minor, but I could feel that the wet suit was ripped and cold water was coming in. At this point I was out and walking on the sand, the leg of the wet suit was bulged/filled with blood. … I was aware that it may not be just a small bite, and I might need to drive to the emergency.”

Spasojevic got to the beach, used his dive belt as a tourniquet and asked a fisherman for help.

“When he noticed me I just dropped on the sand to position my body head downwards, as the beach was sloped, to help keep blood in the brain and slow blood loss. Rubber dive belt tourniquet may have helped but did not stop flow.”

Spasojevic was discharged from Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital after twenty one hours with three diff antibiotics and a box of painkillers.

“My view of it was just a curious bite as gentle as it can get from such a powerful predator. Their teeth are razor sharp and cut through the skin with ease. In addition to being thankful to all responders, I’m very grateful to the shark as well that it was gentle and did not strike again. … [After all,] ocean is their home and we are just visitors.”

Controversy: The Industrial-Surf Complex on mission to disenfranchise brave surfboard shapers, erasing logos, names, wherever and whenever possible!

Chas Smith

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Never trust Big Surf.

One very bright spot in our surfing world, over the last seven years, has been the rise of the shaper. Once relegated to windowless closets where dust and resin poison, the brave craftsman would work tireless hours in order to make others shine.

The door has been opened to the humble artisan’s closet, though, and he is now a celebrated, lauded part of our experience.

The Industrial-Surf Complex, made up of the World Surf League, Olympics, Costco etc., long used to complete, power has not taken kindly to the intrusion.

If you notice, all shaper logos have been scrubbed from each and every board for the upcoming Ultimate Surfer to air on ABC.

Boards as naked a ISA chief Fernando Aguerre’s ambition. As white as WSL CEO Erik Logan’s teeth.

Likewise, there will be no surfboard shaper logos, names, at the Olympics either per the controversial Rule 40 which declares that “only approved sponsors” may reference ‘Olympic-related terms’ i.e. no logos with athletes only allowing to thank their sponsors, including shapers, a total of seven times.

All that work, those days and weeks and months away from family, to be scrubbed clean on the world’s biggest stage.

Will the shapers revolt? Surfers have their back?

Create a sneaky hand sign like Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games?

Something that means “This one goes out to you, Jon Pyzel…” without saying the words “This one goes out to you, Jon Pyzel…”

Big Surf, man.

Never trust Big Surf.

In disturbing sign of what’s to come, Olympic-bound Kolohe Andino forced to explain surfing using Legos: “Here’s me right there on my… shark surfboard. I’m Chewbacca.”

Chas Smith

By

Imagine the inanities our beloved Irukandjis, Brazilian Stormers, Jordy Smiths will also face.

From World Surf League CEO Erik Logan to International Surfing Association chief Fernando Aguerre to Bluestar Alliance, owner of Hurley, maker of beard cream, so much is riding on these upcoming Tokyo Olympics. Surfing’s grand debut. Oh finally but finally the nut will be cracked. Once exposed to our sport of kings, millions of people across the globe will fall in love with competitive professional surfing and seek it out.

Hungry for 6.93s.

Starving for Joe Turpel.

Unconsidered, lost in the cushions, as it were, are the professional surfers themselves.

Take, for example, Kolohe Andino’s pride as he was recently forced to sit down behind a bowlful of Legos and explain surfing to a stupefied audience using them.

“Here’s me right there on my… shark surfboard,” he begins, voice dropping slightly then uttering, “I’m Chewbacca.”

He then builds what appears to be an arch, has Chewbacca “drop in,” go inside the arch then flicks him out with his finger while explaining barrels.

The audience laughs hollowly.

Next, Andino does his best to build a wave breaking though is troubled by the lack of curved pieces. Unbent, he talks through how Olympic surfing will be scored on snaps, aerials and, he pauses, “wave height” building his small tower taller.

“So if the waves are this big and you find a wave… this big, you’re stoked. Don’t fall off.”

More hollow laughs.

Kolohe is an extremely good sport but this is only the beginning. Imagine the inanities our beloved Irukandjis, Brazilian Stormers, Jordy Smiths will face.

Imagines the Spicoli impressions they’ll be conscripted to do and all because Logan, Aguerre and Blueflame crave more eyeballs, dry beards.

Sad.

Watch here.

In horrifying yet possibly justified attack, shark attempts to grab parasailer before taking flight: “One moment he was ready for glee, the next he feared he’d be an amputee!”

Chas Smith

By

Historical first.

I have traveresed much of the Middle East from Morocco to Egypt, Yemen to Syria, and many more beautiful countries between though one of my more memorable stops was in Aqaba, Jordan. For it was in Aqaba that amoebic dysentery threatened to eat my guts and render me dead.

The general bummer came on slowly, in a small hotel overlooking the Red Sea. Feeling sort of unwell etc. Then it came on quickly and I became delirious and weird. Much unpleasant. My best friends in the world transported me to a local hospital, the doctor shook his head and I was hooked up to and IV for a week.

I would drag my IV bag out to the hospital’s parking lot, after regaining a touch of strength, look at the towering mountains and think about Lawrence of Arabia who famously took Aqaba from the rear.

I would look out to the Red Sea and watch parasailers soar.

Parasailing.

A general bummer but worthy of shark attack?

Shark’s apparently, maybe, think so and in an unprecedented attack, a shark leapt out of the water and attempted to damage severely.

One moment he was feeling glee, the next he feared he’d be an amputee.

The young man was reportedly fine but taken to a different hospital, not my local one.

Happy-ish ending but parasailing.

What’s the point?

Have you been?

Can you describe?

Photo: Justin Jay/@justinjayphoto
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