Gabriel Medina warns of the dangers of plastic surgery following death of friend.
"Why risk your life for nothing?" writes Gabriel Medina. "Can you not understand? We are young, we have several other ways of feeling good, healthy, beautiful…"

Gabriel Medina in mourning after plastic surgery disaster kills friend

“This fake world will end up killing more and more young people."

The three-time world champion Gabriel Medina has written movingly of the dangerous pointlessness of plastic surgery following the death of a friend who was undergoing a “simple aesthetic” procedure.

Gabriel Medina, who turns thirty in December is two years off a divorce dissected in all its lurid details by media as well as an estrangement from his mammy and step-daddy, his mental health issues well-known.

Gabriel Medina posted on Instagram.

Attention

Today I lost a friend due to “simple” aesthetic procedures.

Oh world, it’s surreal, people…

Especially you WOMEN, this standard of “perfect” bodies that are impossible to achieve displayed on Instagram and in the media needs to end urgently.

Why risk your life for nothing? Can not understand. We are young, we have several other ways of feeling good, healthy, beautiful, if I can give some advice

We need to return to REALITY in everything. That’s how we are, period.

This FAKE world will end up killing more and more young people.

ATTENTION PEOPLE!!!

Only two months ago, Gabriel Medina wrote of his annus horribilis after he failed to make the top five.

Time to go back home

Many, or most, things will never be in our time. It was time to understand the process.. understand that sometimes gnt is part of other people’s process too. And this time I didn’t want to be selfish to think only of me. What if.. , but if I … , but… I did my best and prepared for that moment. This year was the most physical training in my career. So I came out calmly, and aware that I gave it all of me

Job was done now got a spot here in Teahupoo. But I’ve already received so many waves that changed my life in this exact place.

For years and years, I have faith and believe in God’s plan It’s supposed to be that way. Tomorrow is another day

Choices, learnings and looking to evolve more and more

Medina is now one of the most popular surfers on tour, with peers and fans, and received almost two thousand comments wishing him further glories etc.

Wrote Julian Wilson, one-time title contender and sparring partner who once made Medina cry, “You had some hurdles and you delivered some brilliance once again. Love watching you compete. I believe there’s 5 guys feeling a little lighter not having you in the draw at trestles. Onto the next chapter and keep inspiring us all along the way. Hats off brother.”

Load Comments

Dane Reynolds surfing in Mexico after head injury
Dane Reynolds, back in the water the day after an almost-fatal head injury. | Photo: CH11

Dane Reynolds makes triumphant return to surf after almost fatal head injury in Mexico

One day after the freak accident that nearly killed him, Dane Reynolds climbs back on the horsey.

The go-for-broke Bakersfield-born surfer and former world number four Dane Reynolds has made a triumphant return to surfing after a freak accident that almost cost him his life. 

Dane Reynolds, whose Carpinteria idyll was shattered seven months ago when Travis and Kourtney Barker-Kardashian splurged $16.5 million buying Conan O’Brien’s redundant beach house, walked through a glass door in Mexico, shattering the glass and puncturing his forehead.

“That was a change of events,” Dane Reynolds says in the accompanying video, as he presses a t-shirt around his leaking head. Footage captured from the emergency room finds Reynolds supine yet calm, fly wide open, a gap in the flap as they say, body covered in his own blood. 

Dane Reynolds in a Mexican hospital.
Dane in a Mex hozzy bed.

It isn’t the first time Dane Reynolds has flirted with death.

Eight years ago, surf fans were turned into primitive savages after footage emerged of Chucky Rigano dropping in on Dane fluttering his wings in a long tube, at Sandpit in Santa Babs, California.

“I was thinking oh shit, I just hopped some Santa Barbara fisherman that’s gonna kill me. Then I looked closer, and it was Dane Reynolds, honestly one of my favourite surfers,” Chucky told BeachGrit. “The guy that yelled go was for sure yelling at Dane because he made it around the section and was getting pitted!

“He was super pissed initially, and had every right to be. Anyone, including myself would have snapped for sure. I honestly felt so bad and embarrassed as it gets. Imagine crapping your pants on a first date with a girl you really like, and times that by 10! I said I was beyond sorry multiple times and that I really didn’t see the guy.”

Anyway, in a new video just released on his CH11 YouTube channel, we discover that Dane Reynolds was in the water the very next day after being taped up in hospital.

Per the short’s accompanying blurb,

“Dane Reynolds’ first session in Mexico after busting down the door with his big dome piece. Yellow swim cap X OG Channel Islands Rookie at a sloppy right point.”

As Dane says, “Even when the conditions are shit, riding waves is the best thing in the world.”

In the video, Dane Reynolds’ famous daddy-body is heavy, massive like the country that gave him birth, yet when he surfs he becomes like a cowboy of the Westerns: ready to fire his guns at the drop of a hat, getting into a rage at the least provocation.

Load Comments

Taylor Swift (left) with Bryan West while Nick Carroll and Sam George re-think everything. Photo: Bryan West
Taylor Swift (left) with Bryan West while Nick Carroll and Sam George re-think everything. Photo: Bryan West

Surf journalists rue bad choices as newspapers hire Taylor Swift reporters!

"Where did we go wrong?"

Heartache is currently ripping through every house that a surf journalist calls home. Brothers Sam and Matt George Skyping, earnestly questioning the value of their divine drippings. Sean Doherty slamming his head against his Michael Peterson shrine. Nick Carroll telling his brother Tom that he wishes he was never born.

Much despair.

Yes, what was once a vaguely passable occupation has devolved into an embarrassing horror. A blighted landscape bathed with the flickering glow of Surfer magazine’s AI powered masthead. Where did we all go wrong? What could we have done differently?

It starts and ends in Nashville, as it turns out.

Taylor Swift Rules Everything

Newspapers, which have been busily firing people for decades now, have flipped a U-turn and are hiring again. Not surf journalists or political hacks or foreign correspondents, no, but dedicated Taylor Swift reporters.

Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the country, announced it was desperately seeking a cub to solely discuss the most popular woman on the planet two months ago. After hundreds of applications, Bryan West from Phoenix, Arizona was pegged.

“I would say this position’s no different than being a sports journalist who’s a fan of the home team,” West told Variety. “I just came from Phoenix, and all of the anchors there were wearing Diamondbacks gear; they want the Diamondbacks to win. I’m just a fan of Taylor Swift and I have followed her her whole career, but I also have that journalistic background: going to Northwestern, winning awards, working in newsrooms across the nation. I think that’s the fun of this job is that, yeah, you can talk Easter eggs, but it really is more of the seriousness, like the impact that she has on society and business and music.”

He believes that the “biggest moment of contention” is going to be Taylor Swift’s “hidden vault songs.”

What do you think it will be?

More importantly, how would Sam George cover Taylor Swift?

Exciting to ponder.

Load Comments

Kelly Slater, UAE sheik and Filipe Toledo in Abu Dhabi.
Kelly Slater, happy sheik, even happier kid and, inset, world's best little wave champ Filipe Toledo.

World’s best small-wave surfer Filipe Toledo shows his “barbaric turns” at Kelly Slater’s controversial Abu Dhabi wave pool!

The king of little waves Filipe Toledo gives hell to Abu Dhabi tank!

So much heat enveloping the Kelly Slater-Adam Fincham-designed wave pool in Abu Dhabi yesterday, and not just from its dreamy location in the Persian Gulf.

Surfers took a break from giving hell to Jews defending their fragile state to give it to Slater for being part of the tank’s creation in the controversial Petrostate.

A few examples of surfers’ thoughts.

Yeah! Go “surf” in a fossil fueled cess pool in the midst of a Palestinian genocide! Genocide rhymes with Ecocide! Go Kelly Slater!
How appropriate: “surfing” in a fossil fueled cess pool in Arabia during the midst of Palestinian genocide!? Kelly Slater is such an inspiration! More carbon emissions per “wave” than the 20 hour flight (first class of course) from the white trash capital of the universe (Florida — or is it California? Same thing). Oh wait – Genocide rhymes with Ecocide! Go Kelly!

Did they try and just google a place with even less available water than Lemore and say 📍 that’s the spot?

Are women allowed?

Ugh. A shame he’s doing business in that neck of the woods.

and only 45 Nepalese slave labor workers died of heat stroke building it just so Kelly can surf while avoiding the common peasants taking his waves. what a modern marvel!

And so on.

For those unpolluted by a childlike take on Middle Eastern politics, Kelly Slater demonstrated the blue-water wave to perfection. He even treated his fans to a lightly aerated chop-hop at the wave’s eventual conclusion.

Now, footage has been released of the world’s best small-wave surfer Filipe Toledo at the controversial tank.

Filipe Toledo, who is twenty-eight, has the most well-rounded small-wave attack in the world. He has completed two world title wins in three-foot waves at Lower Trestles and in three events at the Lemoore tank has been runner-up twice, and a winner in 20021.

In waves three-feet and under he is untouchable, although Fillipe Toledo’s big-wave bona fides are yet to be proved. 

 

Load Comments

Wealthy kooks (insert) plan their line at Nazaré. Photo: Dumb and Dumber
Wealthy kooks (insert) plan their line at Nazaré. Photo: Dumb and Dumber

New report suggests Nazaré overrun by uber-wealthy kooks!

"What was once exotic and had to be earned has now become a playground for thrill-seekers, many of them wealthy..."

This world, man. Ever more a tale of two distinct classes. The haves and the have nots. Those who struggle to make the car payment on aged Toyota Tundras and those who enjoy the comforts of the Aston Martin Valour. Now, in times past the uber-rich were happy to stay in their exclusive enclaves and do their exclusive things. Summering on Lake Como, for example, and taking the Alpha Zs across to the Clooneys for luncheon. Post-Covid, though, things have changed.

Billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, who came into their wealth through nerdy means, lack taste entirely. That vacuum is filled with all manner of lower-brow endeavors that should not interest them. Fighting mixed martial arts. Pumping weights. And, according to a terrifying new report, surfing big waves.

Nazaré Gets Kooked

Yes, a reporter from luxury publication Forbes just spent time in the Portuguese hamlet with big wave star Justine DuPont and her husband/sled-driver Fred David.

He was in town to ride on the ski and get a peek at the “huge swells barreling” but excess wind derailed that plan and so the trio merely explored Garrett McNamara’s beautiful baby.

Metaphorically.

While wandering and sipping various chocolate milks, the writer bemoaned:

As for surf purism, big money comes in now from amateur fat-cats from all over the world wanting to “tow in” say, to one big wave, take the accompanying trophy photo and then head home to brag about it. Unfortunately, it’s part of the current trend of tourists paying exorbitant sums to “experience” adventure. What was once exotic and had to be earned has now become a playground for thrill-seekers, many of them wealthy, and now, unfortunately, Nazare is beginning to feel that surge.

Bleak.

While DuPont and David took the bad with the good, happy that local businesses were benefitting, I think we should do a better job of shaming the “wealthy thrill-seekers.”

And those who help facilitate their “experiences.”

Kai Lenny.

Load Comments