Taj and Occ talk serious injury, the merits (or none) of having children and the pain (or none) of never winning a title…

Once a podcast, now with vision, the Occ-cast demonstrates Mark Occhilupo’s great trait, his likability. He’s a terrible interviewer, mostly. He drifts off mid-question, interrupts with his own anecdotes, peers at his computer screen throughout, examining the next question while the previous is being played out thereby losing any sort of storytelling thread.

And yet, the show is compelling for we, and his interview subjects, will forgive Occ, the campest straight man alive let’s face it, for all his flaws.

In this episode we see a relaxed Taj Burrow, now forty years old, and who has known Occ, fifty-two, for coming on thirty years, light up on the usual topics: the knee injury that has kept him out off a surfboard since June (“There was a bunch of lightning bolts in my leg. I was floating there. I knew it was serious”), why he is dubious of the merits of more than one child (“I retired so I could chase waves and get tubed. And children don’t give you that freedom”) and why he doesn’t give a damn hoot about never winning the world title.

“I don’t feel one bit concerned about not winning a world title. I didn’t feel like that kind of person. I feel like my surfing’s hot and cold and I can’t maintain confidence for a while year. It shook me up at the time because it was so close. What do I need to do? I don’t really care now. I’ve done it all. I’ve experienced the highs and lows of competing and I’m happy to’ve made a career out of surfing. I couldn’t be happier. So satisfied. It doesn’t shake me up at all.”

Eyeballs pop, jaws crack!

In this short film, which was made by the Newport photographer Tom Carey, and who is now King of Content at What Youth, we get to tap our toes to Jack Freestone bumping, crouching and jumping at BSR cable park.

Oh that name do ring a bell don’t it.

Just over a month ago, a New Jersey surfer died of a brain-eating amoeba after visiting the park. The Centers for Disease control and Health Department tested the facility and while not finding any Naegleria fowleri, the responsible villain, concluded that, “epidemiologic and environmental assessment indicate that exposure likely occurred at this (Waco) facility.”

In a Trumpian response, the pool’s owner loosed a press release that was headlined, “BSR SURF RESORT, Lazy River & Royal Flush slide WATER TESTS COME BACK CLEAN” and “BSR Determined to Go the Extra Mile, Set Highest Standards for Safety.”

The pool is closed now, til March 2019, so let’s make a little hay with what sunshine remains.

Two surfers, one retired, the other a recluse, reappear in four-minute short for deck-grip sponsor…

You could say that age, and disinterest, has not wearied the retired Taj Burrow and the reclusive Craig Anderson.

Both men, one forty, the other just-turned thirty, have long waved the digitus medius at pro surfing, at the game etc and yet, here, we are reminded why we loved them so.

Taj Burrow was, and still is, an amalgam of Griffin Colapinto and Filipe Toledo while Craig Anderson is still unlike anything we’ve seen before or since – a nice-looking person in butch poses.

The action starts one-minute in (Do you like scenics and raindrops? Start at the beginning) and there’s a surfeit of slow-motion, something which eats me alive.

But I’ve never been a patient man.