Insane! Man beats hell out of palm tree before getting swamped by tsunami!

From the anything-for-a-viral-video department… 

Tsunami, tsunami, tsunami.

The word is on everybody’s lips as Pacific coastlines bolt down following an undersea earthquake off the Kingdom of Tonga at three-thirts last night, the sonic boom from the event heard as far away as Alaska, six thousand miles away.

Meanwhile, in Tonga, waves a few feet high crashed into houses.

Anyway, on a lighter note, a video has emerged of a man beating hell out of a palm tree before being washed away by, likely, the tsunami that hit Indo on, ironically, Boxing Day, 2004.

The provenance of the wild video, and therefore motivation etc, is unknown, although the life jacket and multiple angles do imply it was an early attempt to crack the viral video market.

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John John Florence releases Pipeline documentary four years in the making, “It draws us toward obsession, the power and the glory and the grandeur!”

An endless treasure and battlefield… 

The two-time world champion John John Florence and his media team have released, after four years, an eleven-minute sorta documentary about the wave the champ grew up in front of, Pipeline.

“It took many different shapes over the years to get to where it is now,” writes John in the short film’s liner notes. “It was originally started in December 2017 as a film that focused more on a group of friends who grew up learning to surf Pipeline. Through different creative rounds, and a couple years on the shelf, it eventually evolved into an idea that followed the imagined point of view of Pipeline, with a perspective narrated by local musician Paula Fuga. It was a fun challenge to create a visual history of the wave, but this is not meant to be a complete story. There are too many people to name who have become a part of Pipeline’s history over the years; they could never be fit into one short film. Thank you again to everyone who helped us put this together. The project is dedicated to Derek Ho, and those like him who have dedicated their life to surfing Pipeline.”

Very ethereal, pleasing to the eye etc although I would describe Pipe simply as “Fuck or be fucked.”

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Mason Ho and Mick Fanning in wild head-to-head showdown at Great White-infested San Clemente! “Why do beautiful dreams have to run out so fast?”

Ho's shuck and jive vs Fanning's hooligan pride!

Here, we see Mason Ho belly-bang the three-time world surfing champion Mick Fanning at Lowers in a wild showdown that pits Ho’s shuck and jive against Fanning’s hooligan pride.

Ho, thirty-three, and Fanning, forty, are a whooshing flash among the late-autumn gloom, leaving spectators’ mouths flapping mutely.

The waves are of a good size, clean, and both surfers go for the “kill shot”.

Fanning is magnificent although little Mason Ho’s jackknifing appeals to me more.

No Great Whites, those supercharged Pontiacs that patrol the region,  were spotted during the sessions filmed although they would’ve examined our heroes’ limbs from the grey depths.

There is an added poignancy to this short film when we see Ho gifted a lesson in board decoration by the great Drew Brophy, the iconic surf artist who is in a coma after being hit by COVID (help out with his medical bills here.) 

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Go-for-broke former world #4 surfer Dane Reynolds makes urgent public appeal for data on climate change, “Is the earth a microwave choking on carbon and there’s no turning back?”

"I notice a change, in my short time of paying attention to the weather where I live, 20 or so years, and that is alarming."

Dane Reynolds, the thirty-six-year-old former world number four surfer from Bakersfield in California known for his “go for broke style of surfing that includes many experimental and aerial maneuvers” has used his online channel to make a public appeal for data on climate change.

The father of three writes,

Matt doesn’t believe human behaviour is influencing global warming. Matt has a 5th grade degree in science from Pierpont elementary. 

It’s December 7th and it feels like it’s June. Been flat and gloomy. August had 55 degree water. I swear the pipe used to have a half decent arrangement of cobbles for a somewhat rippable albeit soft peeler. Now it’s a turd. Theres a graveyard of pipe cobbles at San Jon. No rain to restock the pipe.

‘Star Bar,’ remember that? Every 4/5 years there’d be a rain event significant enough to create a massive sandbar at Santa Clara river mouth that extended out 100 yards sometimes more. It’s been about 17 years since  the last ‘Star Bar.’ 

What I’m saying is I notice a change, in my short time of paying attention to the weather where I live, 20 or so years, and that is alarming. 20 years is a tiny slice of time for drastic change.

Is it purely a cycle?

Or is the earth a microwave choking on carbon and there’s no turning back?  I know everyone reading this is an expert, can we get some scientific evaluation? Anyone wanna compare notes from your regional data? 

Included alongside the message is a very good video.

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Ventura father-of-three and former world #4 Dane Reynolds releases surprise surf video hit of the fall, “A lampoon, a reckoning and a tribute all in one!”

Also starring Ventura super Jew and Israeli Olympian Eithan Osborne!

Even after all these years, Dane Reynolds’ famously corked turns lacerate the heart. 

Don’t they?

As he nimbly navigates sections, the daddy-of-three and famously shaggy curmudgeon practically vibrates as he channels anger, apprehension and a sense of foreboding into what is, let’s be honest, superlative surfing. 

Very interesting wave at six minutes and nineteen seconds.

Eithan “Never Again” Osborne, meanwhile, is the classic living example of that wonderful old proverb from King Solomon, “A righteous man falls down seven times and gets up.” 

Perserverance is everything in surfing and Ethan proves it by keeping pace wth his much-older master.

Essential. 

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