Hawaiian surfers Mason Ho and Clay Marzo put on a hitherto unseen display of wizardry at once-secret Indonesian wave, “Any hole or any pit was pleasure, and pleasure was the sweet meat of reason!”

A brief penetrating glimpse into the talents of two of surfing’s greatest virtuosos.

In this short from the studio of Riordan Pringle we see his master, Mason Ho, along with Clay Marzo, who also burns like an STD, deliver a hitherto unseen display of sorcery at Desert Point on the island of Lombok in Indonesia.

It’s an extraordinary encounter, a brief penetrating glimpse into the talents of two of surfing’s greatest virtuosos. Although both men are well into their thirties now, Ho is thirty-four, Marzo is thirty-three, their surfing exhibits a youthful joy.

Jaw-dropping.

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Hawaii’s “Queen of Crazy” Mason Ho releases short film described by critics as “jaw-dropping”, a “masterclass of tuberiding” and “tremendously exciting…searing in its white hot intensity!”

Each session stimulates Ho to such an extent he may have twenty to fifty completed airs on tape within two hours.

So many pretty adjectives can be thrown at Mason Ho’s wildly unique “shuck and jive” style of surfing, a whooshing flash that leaves spectators’ mouths flapping mutely.

In this edit, which takes us to the island of Sumbawa near Bali, and both in the Indonesian archipelago, thirty-four-year-old Mason is at full blast.

Deadly danger for Ho always generates his reflex ferocity to attack, maim and destroy the enemy. You can almost hear the urgency in his testicles.

Each session stimulates Ho to such an extent he may have twenty to fifty completed airs on tape within two hours.

He will stop only when totally exhausted and his brain is flushed with the winning adrenalin of ego.

Essential viewing.

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See the astonishing moment brave Indonesian fishermen capture and slowly kill a twenty-foot tiger shark for her fins, later sold for thirty dollars: “It is very difficult to defeat such an animal! These men have nothing but their hands and their courage!”

An exercise in irony and cultural relativism!


Life is cruel, something we don’t appreciate and that only comes into relief, perhaps, when we discover our woman has been getting railed by a giant Russian cock
while we slave over our spreadsheets in our little cubicles.

Armed only with a few hooks, some nylon line, knives and a ton of bravado, the fishermen capture and kill a tiger shark that, oowee, has gotta be close to twenty foot.

It ain’t a regular occurrence for the men, maybe once a year if the gods are feeling benevolent, they’ll get to put one of the majestic creatures to the sword.

In this case, the tiger is so big they can’t get it on the boat and tow it back to port, drowning it in the process.

Narration in the short is excellent.

“It is very difficult to defeat such an animal. These men have nothing but their hands and their courage to overcome the shark.”

At a nearby fish market, the shark is sold for thirty American dollars.

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Santa Barbara father-of-three Dane Reynolds shocks surf world with film of the year, skewering racism and segregation in the waves with tour-de-force feature “Hallucinatory Idiocy!”

"I always knew it would be a can of worms," says the former world number four.

The former world number four surfer known for his “go for broke” style of surfing that includes many experimental and aerial maneuvers has shocked surf fans with his latest film, Glad You Scored, though I prefer the title Hallucinatory Idiocy.

Dane Reynolds, a father of three who is a couple weeks away from turning thirty seven, is surfing’s rampart against the milquetoast horror of the WSL’s “pandering bullshit that’s exploiting surfing” and, therefore, we must watch and examine closely every piece of his creative output.

Reynolds writes:

We landed home from the final trip to Indonesia on July 7th and we had promised Vans the film would be complete for review July 15th. The premier was based around US Open of Surfing and the event was August 6th.

Someone could probably have made a better film if they documented Hunter and I trying to pull this film together over the past month. Licensing music, computer crashes, missing files, I always knew it would be a can of worms.

But the story I wanted to convey was buried in hours of voice memos I had recorded on the road during decisive or funny or moments that I thought could tell a story, whatever that was going to be, and put the viewer on the road with us while we are trying to get waves and footage.

Boiling that down into a comprehensible storyline was a mind numbing process that I couldn’t ask anyone else to do. I’d work on that during the day and Hunter, for some reason thought he’d be more creative at night and would edit surfing till sun rise. Leaving us nearly zero time to connect the dots between surf sections and the story.

Anyways, it came around and it’s one of my favorite films we’ve done cause it show’s what a shit show it’s really like pulling together surf film.

For me anyway, seems a lot easier and breezy and for all the folks that are always scoring! But now I’m a guy that scores… so look for me in big blue pits from here on out!

Too many highlights to list. Essential etc.

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Kelly Slater reveals stunning thirty-three-year relationship with the step-daddy to his tour nemesis, “I love him. He’s my best friend… I’m a lucky guy to’ve had him in my life all these years!”

The most-loved man in surfing is a hoary old phrase that gets thrown around, but in this case it's true!

A sort of melancholy falls over the  latest episode of Lost Tapes, the 11-part series that documents Kelly Slater’s 2019 year.

It is Autumn and we are in Hossegor, France, as Slater wrestles with a series of ninth place finishes, catastrophic by his standards.

It is lovely in the Aquitaine this time of year, tourists mostly gone, the little summer wind swells giving way to Atlantic muscle, but the sky is greyer, the days shorter.

It’s a time when even the most optimistic soul feels a little malaise.

The episode focusses on his thirty-three relationships with Stephen “Belly” Bell, an ex-pat Australian glasser who’s been living in France since 1989, and who became the step-daddy to Leo Fioravanti after finding love with the Italian’s spectacularly assembled mama Serena.

“It feels like the end of an era for me,” Slater says, as he stays at Belly’s gorgeous cubist beach house. “Belly now has only one event left in his tour managing career… he’s been there for every world title I’ve won. I love Belly. He’s my best friend. He’s a consistent person and a good guy. I can trust him with anything and everything. Everyone should have a Belly in his life. I’m a lucky guy to’ve had him in my life all these years!” 

I know the feeling.

Belly also owns a piece of my heart.

For the two years I lived in Hossegor, through the grey cloak of the long winters and the saturated golds of the too-short summers, he was kinder than he ever needed to be.

Maybe it was our mutual love of titties, short trips to Spain and whistling sand-bottom tubes that clapped like thunder across the town’s sandbanks, but it felt real.

Belly moved from Victoria to France in the mid-nineteen eighties and set up a glassing shop called Euroglass. He had the contract to build all the Quiksilver boards for Europe which, in the honey surf industry days at the turn of the century, meant everyone was coming to Belly for boards, Kelly Slater and the sixties icon Miki Dora included.

Because he was Australian, and more Australian than anyone I’d ever met (although fluent in French), Belly was the hub around which that country’s surfers revolved during the European leg of the tour.

Once Belly asked me to affix a tail-pad onto a board that was bound for Quicksilver’s flagship store in Paris. It was, ostensibly, an ex-Slater board, but it wasn’t.

I put the K-Grip pad on a crooked angle and while it would’ve been justified for him to be agitated and cruel he gave me a fatherly smile and said, “you fucking idiot.”

“Loved by all” is a hoary old phrase to throw around, but it really is true.

Stephen Bell, a little man with a bald head and baggy pants, is all heart, no ego.

Did you know he also rips?

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