Jamie O'Brien sinks his teeth into Waimea Bay's crackling crust!

“I was scared out of my mind!” Jamie O’Brien releases behind-the-scenes video from epic Eddie Aikau Invitational

Derek Rielly

By Derek Rielly

He may look like a hamburger on the griddle but if there are any rungs on that big-wave hierarchy Jamie O’Brien is right at the top.

The carrot-topped king of Pipeline, last seen in these pages when a groundswell of fury forced shoemaker Vans to put him in the Pipe Masters after organisers told him he was too old to compete with the kids, has released an epic behind-the-scenes video from yesterday’s’ Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational. 

The forty-one-year-old YouTube blogger with 1.3 million subscribers, may look like a hamburger on the griddle, freckled stomach pushed forward, a look on his face like a young boy examining a naked woman for the first time, but if there are any rungs on that big-wave hierarchy Jamie O’Brien is right at the top.

In waves that were either sixty-foot, Billy Kemper’s call, or thirty, Claude Aikau’s call, Jamie was adjudged to be the fourth best surfer of the event, behind winner Landon McNamara, Mason Ho and Billy Kemper but ahead of Nathan Florence, Kai Lenny and Koa Rothman.

In this video, Jamie O’Brien brings a touching vulnerability to the big-wave game whispering to the camera, “Let me tell you something, I was scared out of my mind.”

Essential.

 

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Lauryn Florence neé Cribb cuts and styles John's sun-bleached strawberry coloured locks.

Notoriously private triple world surf champ John John Florence gives rare glimpse into life on road

Derek Rielly

By Derek Rielly

"I think about quitting all the time…(pro surfing) doesn't fit my personality."

The big American with the even bigger ass, triple world champ John John Florence, has pulled back the curtain on his private life with a finely crafted sixteen-minute edit of this year’s Australian leg of the pro tour.

John John, thirty-two, husband to Lauryn Cribb and daddy to baby Darwin, was named after the brave little boy, not even three years old and trussed up in a powder blue peacoat, who saluted his dead daddy’s casket in 1963.

A lesser known fact, of course, is John F Kennedy junior got the John-John tag from a White House reporter who misheard JFK senior calling him John twice in a row. No one in the Kennedy fam used it.

In the edit, simply titled Road Trip Through Australia, we see the day-to-day lives of the Florence brothers as they range from Bells to Margaret River, lighting up even the most meagre waves, and the hearts of little fans, wherever they go.

Enjoy it while y’can, of course, because as John John told our old pals at The Inertia,

“I think about (quitting) all the time. It’s hard for me sometimes because my personality doesn’t fit (competing) so well. And especially the new tour over the last couple of years, the environment of it has changed a lot. It doesn’t fit my personality even more so.”

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Erratic and un-calculated Eithan Osborne is full throttle at all times. It pours into his surfing. Gritty aggression always on the edge of going off the rails but sticking it more often than not.

Oy vey: Ventura’s happiest Jew Eithan Osborne releases long-form surf film for Hanukkah!

Derek Rielly

By Derek Rielly

And made by King of the Goys Dane Reynolds!

Ventura surfer Eithan Osborne is twenty-four now. His mammy is a “French-speaking Jewish humanitarian” with a Motorhead sticker on the back of her Volvo stationwagon.

Although not strictly observant, the family celebrates Shabbat every Friday and Hanukkah once a year. 

Eithan is a Hebrew name which you pronounce A-ton. He was courted by the head of the Israeli ISA when he won a WQS event there in 2019 and soon he was on the Israeli national team. 

Eithan holds three passports, US, French and Israeli.

Eithan’s new movie has just been released by his master, King of the Goys, Dane Reynolds. 

He explains:

Matt and I were driving south from San Francisco when he said out of nowhere ‘Eithans kinda like a… Skinny Meat Head.’ And not only was it funny it was a brilliant description. Eithan’s got a lot of angst and muscle packed in that tiny little frame. Erratic and un-calculated he’s full throttle at all times. It pours into his surfing. Gritty aggression always on the edge of going off the rails but sticking it more often than not.

We followed Eithan around the globe to document surf trips and the challenge of balancing free surfing with the ups and downs of trying to achieve his dream of qualifying for the WSL Championship tour.

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John John Florence, a cat among pigeons, while Nathan Florence pushes Ivan into drainer.

Florence brothers pioneer use of “push-ins” to surf wave too heavy to paddle!

Derek Rielly

By Derek Rielly

"It worked so well we were tripping! Might try on a tow day at Chopes next?”

In the latest vlog instalment from Nathan Florence, which includes Olympian John John and slinky baby bro Ivan aka Crazy Bob, the trio visit a republic where the soil is loamy and the people are currently embroiled in a wild dispute over open borders.

Hint: it ain’t the USA.

What is billed as a super heat between the brothers, two-time surfer of the year vs three-time world champ vs underground Pipe shredder, all following Nietzsche’s maxim that the secret to existence is to live dangerously, becomes even more thrilling when the sharp-eyed viewer is gifted the sight of Nathan pushing Ivan onto waves.

“This session the tide started to make the drops extremely difficult and we wanted to try some of the bigger ones so we started pushing each other in,” writes Nathan Florence. “Literally it worked so well we were tripping! Might try on a tow day at chopes next?”

You tried?

At least you tried beyond pushing your kid into waves when he was six?

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The waves are six-to-eight feet and Mason plays with Teahupoo's ol titties and eats its honeybun like it's nothing.

Watch Mason Ho’s first-ever session at eight-to-ten-foot Teahupoo!

Derek Rielly

By Derek Rielly

And on a borrowed old board! Like, yike!

How many surfers can you stand watching, like, really, real talk etc? I’ll take Noa Deane, Dane Reynolds, John John, Nathan if he being crazy, Griffin Colapinto, Yago Dora and Mason Ho.

Surfers who are going to surprise, who always carry a little something in their purses. Surfing that defies the very definition of the word order. Lube and pussy juice shining in the key light.

In this collection of raw footage compiled by super director Nick Pollet, creator of the Greatest Surf Movie of the Universe with its wildly gratuitous violence, scenes of decapitation, and cocks galore, we find Mason Ho, almost forty now but only twenty-eight when this was shot, getting his first taste of Teahupoo.

The waves are six-to-eight feet and Mason plays with Teahupoo’s withered ol titties and eats its honeybun like it’s nothing.

Mason Ho is the son of Michael Ho, “one of the world’s best tuberiders in the mid- and late ’70s (he helped invent the “pigdog” tuberiding technique)”.

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.

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Photo: Justin Jay/@justinjayphoto
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