Dane Reynolds lionises slacker lifestyle in controversial anti-MAGA edit

"It takes skill to become an adult by skating along and never dedicating your time and energy into a specific career."

The go-for-broke Bakersfield surfer Dane Reynolds has released his latest riposte to conventional lifestyles, the sort pushed by the fundamentalist Protestant right and red-hatters, with the edit “We did a great job of doing nothing.”

“Matt and I were surfing Emma Wood – if you call it that… Anyone else feel California has dipped into a deep dark black hole that won’t allow any decent waves to reach the coast?” writes Dane Reynolds.

“Anyways, we were shooting the shit about how impressive it is that one of our dear friends had gotten to where he’s at in life without actually doing anything. It’s very impressive. It takes a certain skill to become an adult by skating along, never applying yourself or dedicating your time and energy into a specific career but somehow he comes out on top time after time.”

Dane Reynolds continues:

“‘Did a great job of doing nothing’ stuck. It’s used to describe a daily grovel that you can barely even call exercise, or a day in the shop when nothings working, ruining screens, staining clothes, no customers, spam calls, broken printer… those times when you just seem to be spinning your wheels.

“I found a stack of black and white prints at the swap meet taken by a racing enthusiast. One of em was of a Buick Regal spinning its wheels before a race and it clicked. That’s the name of the film. ‘We did a great job, of doing nothing’”

Dane Reynolds is the master of the razor-sharp riposte.

One year ago, almost to the day, came his riposte to what he described as the WSL’s “pandering bullshit.”

As always with the almost forty-year-old daddy of three, essential.

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Jamie O’Brien returns to notorious wave that nearly killed him just one year ago as flash floods hit Oahu

"I hope everyone's going to be alright," warns YouTube superstar Jamie O'Brien. "It's a dangerous one."

Pipeline is roughly fifty steps from the modern luxury of Jamie O’Brien’s spacious home. The walls are hung with posters, photographs and abstracts nudes drawn by O’Brien himself.

Explorer, nomad, YouTuber, as he is, forty year old Jamie O’Brien does not despise the pleasures of the upholsterer as is shown by the handsome cabinets, the sumptuous settees, the soft rugs.

He is barrel chested with a freckled complexion, keen eyes and speaks with a low convincing and attractive voice.

However, today, it’s not Pipeline where Jamie O’Brien is taking his more than one million subscribers but to Waimea Bay where flash flooding means the Waimea river has to be opened lest it spill its banks. Keen fans of Jamie O’Brien will recall it was this time last year when the very same brown-water wave nearly took his life.

Jamie tried to ride it only to be sucked out to sea and when he eventually returned he said he’d almost died.

“I knew that it was going to be the biggest river wave ever ridden. It was sending me everywhere. I was like, ‘Don’t fall on this, Jamie. Don’t fall.’ I couldn’t control my board, and I honestly just fell right back. It’s like a 10 or 12 foot wave, and it sucked me back. Then there was another wave, and it was just as big, and I’m like, ‘oh my god. I’m gonna die. My leash is gonna break. I’m in a very bad spot.

“That wave just tumbles me, and tumbles me, and tumbles me…then, boom. It lets me out where the river meets the ocean. And the [ocean] waves were 15 feet. Huge Waimea. Probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done in my life. I don’t even know where I am. I pop up in the middle of Waimea Bay, 300 yards out in the middle of the ocean and the waves are 15 feet. Not a good idea.”

It ain’t quite so dramatic, here, but Jamie O’Brien is more cautious than you might think.

“I hope everyone’s going to be alright,” warns the YouTube superstar. “It’s a dangerous one.”

The most appealing part of the film is the process by which the wave is made. Blurred voices, shirtless men, incessant rain.

It’ll give you an infusion of blood!

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One year after cheating death in freak surfing accident, Jamie O’Brien triumphantly GoPro’s his Vans Pipe Masters heat!

"Death is always just a stone's throw away!"

Last Hawaiian winter, the carrot-topped king of Pipeline Jamie O’Brien, a forty-year-old man who looks like a hamburger on a griddle, was almost killed in a freak accident at the Waimea rivermouth.

Do you remember?

The famous Waimea River had become swollen like never before following wild rains and locals had opened it up to create the biggest rivermouth waves ever seen.

Jamie O’Brien tried to ride it only to be sucked out to sea and when he eventually returned he said he’d almost died.

“Gnarliest experience ever,” said Jamie O’Brien. “I got sucked into the vortex of all vortexes! I knew that it was going to be the biggest river wave ever ridden. It was sending me everywhere. I was like, ‘Don’t fall on this, Jamie. Don’t fall.’ I couldn’t control my board, and I honestly just fell right back. It’s like a 10 or 12 foot wave, and it sucked me back. Then there was another wave, and it was just as big, and I’m like, ‘oh my god. I’m gonna die. My leash is gonna break. I’m in a very bad spot.”

Despite the brush with mortality, not his first let’s add for who can forget the terrible day when Mr O’Brien was almost slaughtered on rocks at Waikiki, today we find our second-favourite vlogger using his GoPro to give his fans a taste of what it’s like to surf in the Pipe Masters.

And, more than surfing the heat, but what it’s like to be Jamie O’Brien, with all the fans, the endless requests for selfies and autographs and a man who looks like he never forgets to butter his muffins telling Jamie he’ll give him anything he wants and that he’s going to DM him about something or other.

In the heat, alongside Koa Rothman, Eli Olson and Makai McNamara, the viewer sees everything Jamie O’Brien sees. We take off into what might be a heat winner but the force of the blowback sends the 2004 Pipe Master tumbling.

We get caught inside, our breathing becomes laboured, we feel the turbulence of the most dangerous wave in the world.

Eventually, we survive only to be accosted by more surf fans and are soon forced to flee the beach to our modest home one hundred feet from the sand.

Essential.

 

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Epic surf-sail adventure “Calypte” hailed as surf film of the year!

"The brutal honesty of this surf film melds with nuanced passion to create a staggering emotional intensity…"

The surf film Calypte documents the epic voyage of Mr Torren Martyn, an Australian who touches the clouds at six-feet-two and who only rides twin-fin surfboards shaped by Simon Jones, and surfer-writer Aiyana Powell, from Thailand to East Indonesia.

The pair have been asked by Martyn’s long estranged Daddy to deliver his thirty-five foot yacht from its home in Thailand to Indo with no time limit stipulated.

The message: get a little wind in those dirty old sails and enjoy testing yourselves, kids, and make one helluva surf film.

Neither Martyn nor Powell are sailors of great skill. Their experience but a few days fooling around on a training boat on a flat-water lake and shadowing Need Essentials owner Ryan Scanlon on his little yacht just offshore from the Yamba marine where he lives, or did last time I spoke to him.

Over the course of one year the pair are tested by the sea, by the weather and by the wild Indian Ocean.

“Our first night watches were intimidating to say the least,” writes Aiyana. “I didn’t know how to interpret the different coloured lights and found it difficult to determine how close other boats were or tell which way they were going. We had to learn how to use the AIS and navigate around the many fishing boats, some that were towing big nets. The shrimp boats were easy to see, but some of the bottom trawlers were not well lit and looked like proper pirate ships silhouetted in the night sky. It didn’t help that this area used to be notorious for actual pirates, and leading up to the trip we had heard lots of stories. It’s definitely a vulnerable feeling to be floating in foreign oceans on a small boat with literally no idea what you’re doing and imagine having to fight off real life pirates.”

Their surf film bona fides are well known, however.

And, Torren surfs, as you know, with the sort of flash and glitz that has made him a cult favourite; Aiyana, meanwhile, is sensational in her smooth cameos.

The brutal honesty of this surf film melds with nuanced passion to create a staggering emotional intensity, culminating in a resolve that is nothing less than heartbreaking.

Essential.

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BIPOC “Queen of Crazy” Mason Ho dominates insane Black Friday session at Waimea Bay!

While other surfers are shaken like dolls in the big waves, Mason Ho coolly slips into the twenty-footers as if he were putting on a pair of silk pyjamas.

In this short film by Mason Ho’s faithful film jockey Riordan Pringle, we find his master madly jack-knifing multiple sets at Waimea Bay during last week’s Black Friday swell.

Mason Ho coolly slips into the the twenty-foot waves as if he were putting on a pair of silk pyjamas and pillow-propping himself against the headboard of his upholstered Californian king and glancing at the winking diamond face of his Patek Philippe.

Other surfers are less lucky, shaken like dolls, heads banged against the water until their eyes cloud.

Mason Ho is delivered to the famous Bay by his daddy Michael Ho, “one of the world’s best tuberiders in the mid- and late ’70s (he helped invent the “pigdog” tuberiding technique)”, although Daddy Ho decides discretion is the better part of valour and decides not to attend the crowded lineup.

If you want to see sixty-seven-year-old Michael Ho at his indestructible best click here. First wave, hands behind the back set at Backdoor cut to Black Magic Women, Santana. Epic.

But, back to Mason Ho.

“The way his brain works is a lot different than any of my other friends,” says Kolohe Andino. “It’s refreshing to hang out with him, and get him talking about something. It’s like he’s a complete innocent. My friends and I might get eggy about something, but I’ve never heard him bum out. He gives me some of the best vibes I’ve ever felt.”

Kelly Slater says that Mason Ho is “so psyched and happy sometimes I think he’s putting it on, and messing with everyone. But he’s always just that way. He’s a cross between in-control and in-awe at all times.”

Mason Ho has a safety word he uses if the situation ever gets sticky. “When shit gets bad,” he says, “I think of this one word, imua. And, it means, ‘to move forward.’ It’s an ancient Hawaiian saying. They’d use it right before they went to war, or begin a march. When I’m down, I yell that out instead of ‘Fuck!’ I yell, ‘Imua!’ I mean, I don’t if there’re people around. That would be corny. I ain’t a hundred percent Hawaiian, but it feels good to think about it.”

After the session Mason Ho sits in the tray of Daddy Ho’s pickup, wide-chest still dewy with Pacific Ocean, heaving smoothly.

Essential.

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