Person of colour, Drew Brophy. | Photo: drewbrophy.com

Iconic surf artist Drew Brophy emerges from COVID coma and recounts “profound experience on the other side – an insight into how EVERYTHING in the universe works!”

Derek Rielly

By

"Drew cannot talk yet but he can write and mouth words."

Six weeks ago, the iconic surf artist Drew Brophy was hit with COVID real bad and was in a coma, ventilator working his lungs, outlook bleak etc.

Now, and as revealed in an Instagram post from his family, Brophy’s health may have turned a corner, and while in a coma the king of Posca pen art was taken on a wild metaphysical adventure.

 

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A post shared by Drew Brophy Surf Artist (@drewbrophy)

UPDATE: Now 6 weeks in ICU. He was on a vent for 4 weeks and now a trach is delivering oxygen, which is less invasive, and he is being weaned off of heavy sedation. Drew is gaining strength back and recovery is happening. His oxygen needs decrease each day. His mind is clear and he is starting to look like himself again.

A week ago I was told he had a small chance of making it. Six days ago he turned a corner and his doctor called him “a Christmas Miracle.”

But our family and friends knew all along that he was going to beat this.

Yesterday Drew asked “what day is it?” I told him Dec 27th and he realized he had been OUT since Thanksgiving. He was surprised and I was afraid the news would send him backwards. But he handled it like the bad @ss that he is!

Drew cannot talk yet but he can write and mouth words. I’m getting better at reading lips.

Drew wrote about a profound experience he had on “the other side,” insight into how EVERYTHING in the Universe works. I’m sure a lot of new art will come out of this!

We have a ways to go, but Drew is getting better. He is fortunate that his body was so strong and healthy before all this. Besides lung inflammation, the rest of his body is in great shape. Yesterday’s CT showed NO permanent damage to his lungs!

We got approval for an experimental drug called Aviptadil. It’s very promising to quicken his healing. I’ve had to go through a lengthy process to get it approved; hours of research, paperwork and phone calls. Finally, it’s been ordered and when they give it to him, his healing will be even faster.

There are many earth angels helping Drew get better – friends that work at his hospital that look out for him and family that send him happy videos to keep his spirits up. And so many friends who have been fundraising, leading prayer circles and taking care of Dylan and me.

Anyone out there been on the other side, too?

I went there, aged ten, after a doctor got the dosage wrong on an anti-nausea drug, turning it into a wild hallucinogenic.

The things I saw shaped my life forever.

Jackie Robinson en route to winning the Corona Open at Barra in August. | Photo: WSL/Heff

In scintillating rumor, World Surf League leaning toward Mexico’s Barra de la Cruz as 2022’s champion crowning final stop!

Chas Smith

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Of course Pipeline would be the best choice and most exciting though the League has demonstrated a real antipathy toward the wave.

The sun is poking through the morning clouds in Venice casting a cold yellow glow on the somnolent canals. Tourists, having just woken and headed out for their first cappuccinos, are ready to see sights, snap photos, post to Instagram.

Many sighs.

Last evening, I attended a concert wherein the music of Venetian Antonio Vivaldi was performed with gusto by nine violinists, cellists etc. and was moved greatly especially since I had just heard a wonderful rumor from a well-placed source that the World Surf League is currently favoring Barra de la Cruz as the champion-crowning final stop of 2022.

Last year’s unveiling of the new format, slotting the top five finishers of the season in a one day punch up, was wildly successful and very much fun though the venue, Lower Trestles, lacked flair.

Of course Pipeline would be the best choice and most exciting though the League has demonstrated a real antipathy toward the wave.

Barra, though, is gorgeous and nothing to shake a stick at.

The reeling right point was introduced to the world during a Search event some many years ago and cut to pieces by Andy Irons. It returned to the tour as a stop last year and, if I recall, was enjoyable. If the rumor holds and it is, indeed, the decider will it favor regular footed surfers?

Owen Wright not a world title favorite?

Much to ponder.

Santa Cruz big-wave legend and snowboarder Ken “Skindog” Collins issues ominous warnings from mountains as record snowfalls cause chaos in US, “Taking alternative routes to ski resorts is suicide. There is no way in, only death!”

Ben Marcus

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“Eleven on the sketch meter. People can die digging out their driveway!”

The good news is: The fierce Pacific storms that bent palm trees, tore off roofs and caused heaps of trouble along coastal California marched inland and dumped heaps of snow in the Sierras and hopefully put a serious dent in the drought. 

California’s water supply is all up in that snowpack and five to eight feet of snow eased worries that California’s need for 38,000,000,000 gallons of water a day (yeah, 38 billion gallons, every day) will not be met and California might return to: “If it’s yellow then it’s mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down.”

And nobody wants that.

The bad news is, all the snow flocking the Sierras is attracting flocks of powder hounds and families who might be unaware of just how dangerous several feet of fresh-dumped snow can be.

Ken “Skindog” Collins esq (we don’t know when he got a law degree) is a powder hound who hit the Sierras and found more than he bargained for.

At 9:00 PM on Sunday the 26th of December, Collins found himself boxed in by snow on Boxing Day. He most likely took this photo earlier in the day, and sent it from his car, stuck in snow and traffic.

The next morning, at 8:39 AM PST, Collins appeared to have broken through and appeared to be in a parking lot somewhere. He made a Public Service Announcement from behind the wheel of his large automobile, sipping on a cup of coffee, wearing a hood over his Volcom cap.

Boys! Update! As you know, there’s a massive storm we just had in the Sierras. Eight foot plus, super light and fluffy, killer snow. Very dangerous.  Eleven on the sketch meter. Like don’t go in the back country is like common sense. But don’t go walking around your house right now. There’s an avalanche on every single rooftop on the condo you’re staying at, the house you’re staying at even at the resort you’re in right now. There could be a half ton of snow falling on you or your child and it could suffocate you. People can die digging out their driveway. It’s that dangerous, so be very mindful. Don’t go walking around under trees that look like they could drop two tons of snow on you. Huh. I know it sounds silly but don’t let your kids go have a snowball fight unsupervised. Seriously. It’s like letting them swim on the beach with 100-foot waves. It’s like…. That dangerous. It could happen so quick and easy. Someone could die digging out their driveway or the side of their house.  Like…seriously. Be careful. Don’t go for a drive. Stay put. Wait this out. It will be fine. And that’s it.

And Skindog’s warnings were correct, as the next day, newspapers across California were headlined with reports that Interstate 80 was closed indefinitely, there was an avalanche across Highway 89, etc. etc.

The Tahoe Daily Tribune declared this month:

“A December to remember” and reported: “South Lake Tahoe, Calif. – This sure has been a December to remember and it will literally go down in the record books.

Overnight snowfall rates were recorded by NWS across the Sierra at rates of 2-4″ per hour and continuing through sunrise. This brought snow ranges of 18-36“ 24-hr totals reported by the resorts at the higher elevations. Lake level residents were smothered with another 12-16” in their driveways with little room to displace the new snow. That’s over 100“ in just 6 days!

The snowfall record for December of 1970 at the Central Sierra Snow Lab was 179“ but with the recent burst of 39” of snow our official totals now sit at 193“ with more on the way.”

One hundred ninety three inches of snow is more than sixteen feet of snow, which means plenty of stored water for California, and maybe the folks down in Lemoore won’t complain so hard when Kelly and Co throw big roostertails and huck all that precious, cool, clear water down at Surf Ranch, which is right in the middle of California’s water wars.

And we’ll do the math for you: Even with 40 million people in the state, 70% of that water is used by agriculture. And 38 billion gallons of water a day is a whopping 13,870,000,000,000 gallons of water a year.

That’s enough to fill Surf Ranch 13,870,000,000,000 / 15,000,000 = 924,666.66666666666666666666 times.

Koa's electric dirt bike, stolen from backyard of family's Sunset Beach compound.

Thief makes “biggest mistake of his life” after breaking into Sunset Beach compound of notorious North Shore strongman and stealing son’s electric dirtbike, “I like when they steal! Because when I catch um I break all their fingers with a bat!”

Derek Rielly

By

“The guy that that stole this is #dead”

As exhilarating and as lucrative as stealing might be, there’s always the chance y’gonna rip off the wrong person, as one bandit patrolling the North Shore discovered recently.

Six days ago, Koa Rothman, the twenty-eight-year-old son of North Shore strongman and co-founder of Da Hui Eddie Rothman, woke to find his electric dirt bike had been taken from the backyard of his family’s Sunset Beach compound.

 

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A post shared by Koa Rothman (@koarothman)

Response was uniform,

“Someone is fuxked.”

“Damn someone stole the wrong bike from the wrong family this time.”

“Damn I pity the dude that stole it. #rip”

“The guy that that stole this is #dead”

“I like when they steal! Because when I catch um! I break all their fingers with a bat! & then escort um to there house! Das how we do in waimanalo! *ucking cracks!”

Now, if y’been in that joint, a spectacular place near Backyards with a fine use of decorative woods, you know you don’t wanna be in there uninvited, let’s say.

Daddy Ed, big brother Makua, little bro Koa, maybe a dog or two, they ain’t partial to surprise visits.

Let’s detour briefly into Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell, Charlie Smith’s best-seller, to examine the bona fides of Fast Eddie.

Theoretically Eddie Rothman is nothing to fear. Sixty-three years old and five foot seven, if generous, five foot six if honest, he could be a grandpa or a retiree. But he is not. He is roping muscle. His arms, usually bare, are perpetually flexed. His chest, puffed like a gorilla, vibrates aggression. His expression rarely changes. It is stone and his features are stone too. A pug nose broken more than once. A jaw that would be impossible to break even with a lead baton. He shaves his grey hair down to a fine stubble and the braided rattail that he once sported is gone. The neck that holds that head up is as thick as a tree. His eyes, when not covered behind wraparound sunglasses, are dull and probing at the same time. He looks through you, very slowly. He looks into you. The reality of Eddie Rothman lives up to the whispers. He is no ordinary little man from Nebraska, like the Wizard of Oz, hiding behind a disembodied, booming voice. He is a flesh-and-blood reckoning.

British newspaper of record interviews artificially generated Mark Zuckerberg, reveals deep passion for sport of kings: “I do surfing and am grateful for the world of water.”

Chas Smith

By

Also, "The world is going to end, and if we don’t make money from that, then we should just sit down in the water and make Reels right into the last couple of days."

I am now in Venice, not Beach, staying in the Hotel Metrople’s owner suite and forgot how truly magical this city is.

The mixture of near east smashing into west, seafaring, music and art hums like a perfectly tuned mahogany Riva.

Gorgeous.

Simply gorgeous and I don’t know why Facebook founder and the world’s sixth richest man Mark Zuckerberg didn’t choose to colonize here instead of culture-light Kauai.

To each his own, I suppose, and maybe it has something to do with this deeper than expected love of our sport of kings.

The Guardian, newspaper of record in the United Kingdom, wanted badly to interview Zuckerberg but was not afforded an opportunity so built an articulacy generated version no different from the real thing.

“To do this,” The Guardian explained, “we worked with Botnik Studios to create a predictive keyboard trained on the past two years of Zuckerberg’s public statements (archived by Marquette University’s Zuckerberg Files). Our previous interview with the Zuckerbot, conducted in 2019 and based on Zuck’s statements from 2016 to 2019, can be found here. Guardian journalists provided the questions; Botnik used the predictive keyboard to generate the answers.”

A sampling:

You control a 55% voting stake in your company. What safeguards exist to check your power?

I need to ask permission from a big personal influence – my parents. They don’t expect that their friends will like the new things I’ve done. Hopefully, later on helping me will become their lives but for now we’re gonna roll with social media for all kinds of ages.

Do you still think Facebook is making the world a better place?

The world is going to end, and if we don’t make money from that, then we should just sit down in the water and make Reels right into the last couple of days.

And most surprisingly…

Let’s play a game. What are two truths and one lie about yourself?

One: I have no company. Two: I have no tolerance for the town square. Three: I do surfing and I am grateful for the world of water.

Are you surprised that Zuckerberg appears to define himself though surfing, or rather foiling?

Does this make his very best friend Kai Lenny the world’s tenth most powerful man?

More questions than answers.

Read here. 

Photo: Justin Jay/@justinjayphoto
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