Ben Gravy Vlog: “I’m the best daddy you’ll ever have!”

Derek Rielly

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Original surf vlogger drops clip every single damn day. Here's Wednesday…

The New Jersey surfer Ben Gravy, who is thirty, has cut himself a semi-lucrative slice of the ol media pie.

A couple of years ago, the college grad (bach in film) figured if he could film and cut and deposit one surf clip on YouTube every day he’d get a little traction among the two hundred thousand or so surf fans around the world.

So far he’s got 43,000 subscribers on his channel and a total of nine million views over a thousand-ish clips.

“I’ve learned that the true recipe for success through this is honesty.” Ben told Surfer last year. “I’m 100 percent transparent online. I’ve cried in my vlogs, multiple times. I’ve shown sadness, joy, epicness…I’ve shown it all. Sometimes, yeah, it’s heavy. I get 99 percent positive comments, but when one person comes at me…it’s tough. They go for my throat.”

Consistency varies, as it does on such a prolific channel. Some will produce an unsettling gas; others stroke your stomach and whisper in your ear.

This eighteen-minute featurette shows Ben with his surfboard sponsor SuperBrand cruising the relatively secluded beaches around Leucadia, a couple of hours south of Los Angeles.

The waves are small but good, the water’s warm and green and the little children light up when they see the famous vlogger (who inspired Jamie O, Brett Barley and Kalani Robb to follow suit).

For me, it wasn’t a slam dunk, so to speak, but a courteous ass fondle.

Fifty-Eight Furious Seconds of Taj Burrow! It’s called “Acidic Ejaculit!”

Derek Rielly

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Well-shorn clip of Taj Burrow's dive bombs and bursts of lightning…

He may be as leathery as a sow’s purse but put just-hit-forty Taj Burrow on a wave and he’ll make you come so hard your eyes will knock loose! Hoo-ee etc.

Two years ago, rated sixth in the world and a mathematical possibility for a world title, Taj Burrow retired after nineteen years on tour. Can you imagine sitting at the same desk, in the same office, for nineteen years? Sure, swinging your bag on the tour ain’t working in the office cubicle at an insurance company, but all the same travel routes, all the same faces, all the same jokes, the same parties, it gets old real fast. Twenty years of it is a haul.

Of course, we miss his surfing terribly. The moving and heaving. Dive bombs. Bursts of lightning followed by thunderclaps that made everyone jump.

Therefore, even a sub-one minute promo clip for his new Lost model, the Beach Buggy 2, is enough for a little relief and sufficient release.

Watch: Billy Bain in “I’m an artist and that’s what I do!”

Derek Rielly

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Pro-in-the-making eschews dazzling career as dancing bear for…art! Like the olden days!

Little Billy  Bain. Sweet Billy Bain. Some moons ago, the son of the pro surfing great Robbie Bain, was the finalist in a find-the-great-new-talent contest my magazine ran. He didn’t win, that honour went to the unknown jibber from Cabarita called Chippa Wilson, but he came very close.

I knew a little of Billy’s art, at the time it was quite naive and derivative, but like all things, the kid found his heart’s true desire, his passion, and began to grow it, develop it. Take criticism, move in unexpected directions, live it.

In this, the first of a three-part series by the wetsuit company O’Neill about its lesser-known but nevertheless interesting surfers, Billy’s pivot from surf to art is unpacked, as they say.

“I’m an artist and that’s what I do,” says Billy. “My purpose is to make cool shit.”

“These O’Riginals films are about examining the influence surfing has had on these guys’ lives, how it affects the choices they make and the way they want to live and,ultimately who they want to be,” says series director, Adam Blakey who, let’s not forget, was responsible for that attractive short film with Mason Ho and Mick Fanning we ran a couple of days back. 

 

Occy interviews Gerry Lopez: “I pierced my colon! I looked at my board and went…wow!”

Derek Rielly

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Revealing one hour interview with Mr Pipe, ol Gerry Lopez…

My eyes swim with joy every time I see the one-time most radical surfer in the world, Mark Occhilupo, alive and coherent. There was a time, and I’m hardly talking outside of various confidences, when it seemed that he would soon be floating in heaven alongside Bunker Spreckels and so on.

Now in his fifties with a dozen or so children, Occ has masterfully handled the transformation from spoiled superstar to loved-by-all icon. In this, the thirty-third episode of his Occ-Cast, he brings his endearingly clumsy interview style to the beatific Gerry Lopez.

Gerry talks injury (pierced colon), his home at Mt Bachelor in Oregon where he runs a contest where riders “surf” wind-lips named after famous Hawaiian waves (Ala Bowls, Second Reef Pipe and so on), pioneering G-Land etc.

Like history?

Want to see what dignity in a surfer looks like?

Watch, listen.

 

Jamie O’Brien stars in “I’m lying about being a virgin because I use XXL tampons!”

Derek Rielly

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Whaddya get when you mix Waimea Bay with an eight thousand dollar winch and a hundred buck roll of plastic? Too many laughs!

Earlier today, Jamie O’Brien, orange as a tropical sky and lover of sleek women you and I will never possess, released the latest in his weekly YouTube series.

In this episode, Jamie sails his Hobie Cat from Pipeline and down to Waimea. In not-so-short order, he realises the Waimea River’s potential for a slip-and-slide, backflips off the Waimea jump rock, sails back to Pipe, grabs pals and loads eight-thousand dollar Subaru winch into truck, drives to Ace Hardware in Haleiwa, buys a hundred-buck roll of plastic, drives back to Waimea, builds ramp, nails down plastic and hits the damn thing at fifty, sixty clicks.

Watch it and you’ll wonder if the river wasn’t maybe a lil shallow to be somersaulting headfirst into.

“It was definitely shallow,” says Jamie. “I was wondering whether we should do it, should we not, then I was, like, game time. We’re on it. We’re doing it. Next thing y’know, you’re in the air…oh…shit…”

Despite the sceptre of quadriplegia etc, the only injury came when Jamie’s non-surfing, but hard-charging Nitro Circus pal Skummy Diener, whom Jamie had previously tried to drown at Pipeline, lost power at the jump and didn’t make the water.

“He just told me, ‘My shoulder’s still fucked!’. This is the Skummy who once drove a car through a parked RV on fire. He’s definitely one guy who makes me step up my game when it comes to land. He’s as savage as it gets. (But) when it comes to water he’s the biggest pussy in the world. He’s like a well put-together Poops. I suggest anything and he has no hesitation.”

Do watch.

Photo: Justin Jay/@justinjayphoto
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