The season of darkness and light.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. Yeah, Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

It could easily describe Indonesia in the COVID era. The country worst hit by the virus in south-east Asia, twenty-one thousand cases a day, fifty-eight thousand dead. A nation “on the edge of catastrophe.” Scientists say the number of daily cases is, likely, ten times higher but who can afford a test? 

But one man’s death sentence (an Australian environmental scientist describes people “hacking up black stuff” on the streets and ex-pats paying twenty gees to recuperate at international hospitals while locals die in the back rooms of their family’s hovel), is a surfing bacchanal for others like Mason Ho and his pal Sheldon Paishon, and which we can examine in this wonderful short film by Rory Pringle.

Russell is twenty-four years old, diminutive and old world, with a tight mouth and very plain-face that have the ferocity of an angry cuckold, a cranky Italian denied his lunchtime siesta.

The deceptively fragile looking Australian big-wave surfer Russell Bierke commands such a reputation he needs very little introduction, although a little background never hurts, does it? 

Russell is twenty-four years old, diminutive and old world, with a tight mouth and very plain-face that have the ferocity of an angry cuckold, a cranky Italian denied his lunchtime siesta.

He is the son of the noted Californian-born shaper Kirk Bierke whose boards are sold under the label KB Surf and made in Ulladulla, three hours south of Sydney. 

Russell’s earliest memories are of watching his dad run out the door whenever the surf was big, going to the beach and seeing him ride these big, blue-water reef waves, and wanting to be part of the game.

In January this year, as much of Australia’s east coast was raked by a powerful south swell, Russ was dragged along the bottom of a fav reef and a hole was cut near his arm’s brachial artery, the limb’s flexor muscle exposed. 

In 2017, he was “blue as a Smurf” and “on all fours spewing” after a wipeout in fifteen waves in Victoria, an injury that put him in intensive care.

The last six months have been relatively blood free.

This video, which premiered yesterday, will be of interest to any jury looking for evidence of who might be Australia’s best big-wave surfer.