Inspiring: Watch Surf Brawl Survivor Jordan Montgomery’s opus “Sandbar”!

Derek Rielly

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Virginia Beach surf filmmaker dusts himself off after"world's lamest surf assault!"…

Regular readers will be aware, by now, of the “world’s lamest surf assault.” To bring everyone up to speed, as they say, a light collision in one-foot waves resulted in one surfer being arrested and cuffed at his workplace and, briefly, jailed.

“The funny thing is, I fell off my board. I was avoiding a collision,” said the accused attacker, Alex Burdett. “If you look at the video, I’m on a five-two twin and he’s on a ten-foot longboard. He puts two hands on my shoulders and I jump over his board. I didn’t physically touch him. I’m goofy and he’s regular. I can’t jump backwards.”

Watch here.

His accuser, the filmmaker Jordan Montgomery, told BeachGrit, “I did what I had to do to protect myself…He laid a hand on me and in the United States you can do that. Surfing is a recreational sport and I’ve been surfing for fourteen years.”

Eight months after the “world’s lamest surf assault”, Alex and Jordan fronted court where a not-guilty verdict for assault and battery was reached. BeachGrit believes that both parties signed no-talkie agreements hence no more quotes from the two men.

Meanwhile, Jordan has gotten back to his business of filming other men surf.

In this attractive enough short called Sandbar, we see Michael Dunphy, Eric Geiselman and Evan Geiselman cabana hunting on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

So far, no charges have been laid.

Dane Reynolds hates interviews, reactions to his Big Gulp, cities, Ryan Reynolds (Does Courtney love?), dessert, golf, fast food, reposting clips and, most of all "The WSL's Instagram. Pandering bullshit that's just exploiting surfing." Here, Dane wearing a pair of souvenir socks that come with limited-ish edition Monster Children boxed set (500 copies).

From the hate-speech department: Dane Reynolds says “WSL’s Instagram is pandering bullshit that’s exploiting surfing!”

Derek Rielly

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The former world number four also don't like people ordering dessert and golf with Kelly Slater…

Released tomorrow is a new issue of the magazine Monster Children edited by the former world number four, Dane Reynolds.

A quick squiz at the presser:

“Issue 60 of Monster Children has been entirely curated by Dane Reynolds and includes: a ‘Best Of’ Dane Reynolds photo feature, a update to team FORMER with Craig Anderson, an in-depth chat with A. Savage of Parquet Courts, a behind the scenes look at Ye Olde Destruction by artist Thomas Campbell, and a look at the life and times of artist and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover alumni, Wallace Berman.”

TO CELEBRATE DANE REYNOLDS AS GUEST EDITOR, MONSTER CHILDREN HAVE PRODUCED A LIMITED EDITION, SPECIALLY CURATED BOX SET. RETAILING FOR $59AUD WITH OVER $100 WORTH OF VALUE, ONLY 500 BOX SETS ARE AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE. THE SET CONTAINS:

  • —  Monster Children Issue #60
  • —  PC Worship Cassette Tape, featuring custom audio tracks and cover design
  • —  MC x Dane Reynolds ‘HATE’ Beanie
  • —  MC x Dane Reynolds ‘FUCK OFF’ Socks
  • —  MC x Dane Reynolds Sticker Pack

It begins with Dane refusing to write the intro followed by an interview with his Former biz partner Warren Smith being interviewed.

“You might have to make this The Hate Issue and just talk about everything Dane hates,” says Warren.

Which leads to Dane’s 10 Things I Hate (which you can watch by pressing the play button).

It’s all very good. He hates interviews, cities, Ryan Reynolds, people ordering dessert at dinner, Kelly Slater getting mad at him for not taking a game of gold seriously and, most of all, he hates the WSL’s Instagram, timely given the company’s latest post.

Question: Is Dane a glum, repulsive, fat old invert, contemptuous of the sparkling way of life presented by the WSL or is he a rare soul with an opinion who ain’t afraid to say it?

Buy magazine here. (It’s very good.)

Jack Robinson, beyond happiness, during a seven-to-three session. Duncan Mcfarlane

Watch: Occy, Jack Robinson, Shane Dorian (and Laura Enever) in “Holy tubes in the naked desert!”

Derek Rielly

By

Come and get a glimpse of desert skin…

Somewhere on the edge of the desert on the Western Australian coast is a lefthander that makes every other wave you’ve surfed taste like a turkey cocktail (Vermouth and Angostura Bitters. Shake.)

And if you’re a Western Australian, and you surf, this wave is mapped in your DNA. You’ll feel it. The first big cold fronts come through sometime in June and all thoughts turn one thousand clicks north. If you’re a tradie or a freelancer, you scrub out work commitments for a month in the desert. Caravan. Tent. Cases of Emu Export, a second-rate beer that’s an obsession in these parts. As if drinking this camel piss and not wincing makes you a better man.

In this eleven-minute film, we see a welcome return to form for a company that is now, effectively, a subsidiary of its former arch-rival Quiksilver. Twenty-three years ago, when Billabong owned surfing in much the same way Dirk Ziff does now, it took Shane Dorian, Rob Machado, Occy, Sunny Garcia, Brendan Margieson, Kelly Slater, Paul “Antman” Paterson and Johnny-Boy Gomes to the north-west for the first of the Billabong Challenges. 

In the film here, which is called Desert Hilton, the cast includes Occ (now fifty-two), Shane Dorian (forty-six) and Jack Robinson, Shaun Manners, Kai Hing with a brave cameo from Laura Enever.

Jack and Shaun star in the water; Occy is in all his fussy and hopeless magnificence on land.

Maryland!

Watch: Thirty-five hot seconds of clenched-teeth Maryland tubes!

Derek Rielly

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Simon Hetrick welcomes the viewer to his domicile, where woollen jerseys and very warm wetsuits are very much compulsory…

This isn’t a short film. It’s barely an Instagram-length clip. And, for that, I resisted my click.

What attracted me, eventually, was the weaponry this Maryland beachbreak produces. As naive as only the poorly travelled can be, I had no idea you could romp in the Atlantic in waves so good they give a man (or woman, yes) spells of dizziness.

Ostensibly, it’s an advertisement for Vissla’s North Seas wetsuit as Simon Hetrick, who is eighteen years old, is one of their team riders.

Whether or not you surrender to the sell is your choice as an informed consumer.

I do hear great things about ’em, to put it mildly.

My whole life I was always trying to win a heat or get the clip, which is an ego-based fulfillment. I realized that's why I wasn't being fulfilled by surfing like I was when I was a kid. When you're a kid, you're very present and you're surfing just to surf--you are completely open to that experience. Whatever the ocean throws at you, you're excited to experience it, and I think I lost that when I became a pro surfer. When I let all of that go, surfing was suddenly, like, "Whoa, what is this?" I've felt this shift in my surfing where it's become the ultimate meditation for me.

Watch: Sterling Spencer in “Journal of a pointless life!”

Derek Rielly

By

Wrung dry by depression, the wonderful Sterling Spencer heads to secret island…

In this trailer for an upcoming film by the surfer-comic Sterling Spencer called Join the Dance, and which may or may not be completed this year, we find a curious introspection.

This isn’t a grab-bag of comic moments such as the Spurned Child that offended Jeremy Flores so much he choked out Sterling.

Or the order-a-pizza-while-tubing gag.

Sterling, see, suffers depression and this movie, which centres around Sterling meditating on an island, is gonna be shortish on jokes.

In an interview with Surfer magazine’s Todd Prodanovitch, whom I fell in the deepest platonic like with during our mutual Surf Ranch session last November, Sterling explains his motivation.

“I was really depressed when I had my son, and that totally freaked me out. I was thinking, “This should be the best thing that’s ever happened to me, why do I feel so depressed?” I’d tried everything, but nothing really helped that much until I started meditating. I had this clear moment when I realized that I wasn’t my mind, I wasn’t the person talking–I was just watching this person talking. So then who is this person watching, you know? My perspective really changed. I went to this little island–a little secret spot with waves–and I just camped out, searching within myself. I was having my Rob Machado “Drifter” moment. [Laughs.] But on the island, there was this guy who shoots photos of birds, since they fly through there as they migrate to Mexico. We kind of knew each other before, but we became good friends. He was filming me surfing when he wasn’t shooting these birds, so he kind of organically caught me finding my connection with the present moment and with real life.”

And

“My whole life I was always trying to win a heat or get the clip, which is an ego-based fulfillment. I realized that’s why I wasn’t being fulfilled by surfing like I was when I was a kid. When you’re a kid, you’re very present and you’re surfing just to surf–you are completely open to that experience. Whatever the ocean throws at you, you’re excited to experience it, and I think I lost that when I became a pro surfer. When I let all of that go, surfing was suddenly, like, “Whoa, what is this?” I’ve felt this shift in my surfing where it’s become the ultimate meditation for me. Meditation is just the bridge toward peace within ourselves–a bridge toward the now.”

It’s a lovely interview. Read the rest here. 

 

Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms
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