With dazzling cameos from Parker Coffin and Jett Schilling…

There hasn’t been this much fire and brimstone in Waco  since the FBI incinerated the prophet Vernon Wayne Howell and 78 of his Branch Davidian followers at the New Mount Carmel Center in Axtell, a little north-east of where the wave pool was built.

This short from the Coffin Bros’ YouTube channel was filmed by Dane Reynolds’ primary shooter Mini Blanchard and edited by noted director Blake Michel.

It is, therefore, a well-built six minutes with the usual pyrotechnics from Jett and Parker.

But if there’s an exchange, or a comparison, that’ll make you lie on your stomach on the dirty yellow rug in your living room and stare at the computer screen, it’s Bobby Martinez, former world number five, and Bethany Hamilton, the one-time tiger shark wrangler.

A welcome contrast in styles outside the TV dinners we’re usually served.

"I'm pretty but I'm not a pretty girl," says Kolohe Andino's former San Clemente sparring partner Luke Davis.

Luke Davis is a name that’s partly familiar, if you like your pixies with suntans and glowering stares.

Davis, who is twenty-six, comes from the same San Clemente hot-house as Kolohe Andino, Ian Crane, Tanner Rozunko and Jeremy Carter, although his career trajectory has tended less towards accumulating tour points and more to “flexing” in VIP areas in LA nightclubs.

(Davis now lives in Mar Vista, westside LA.)

This clip, shot a few weeks ago in Bali and post-foot surgery, has a vibration that makes y’want to stick yourself in the water.

No, little Luke ain’t Italo, but the waves are pretty and the music sings, I think.

I asked Luke,

What can you give me?

I’m not sure what I have to give you. My soul? 

Does it hurt to be pretty?

Sometimes.

Do you know who your real friends are?

I have a pretty good idea at this point. 

Do you care what people think of you?

I stopped caring what people thought of me before I turned twenty-one. Maybe younger. I care what my friends think of me as a man but I don’t care about it otherwise.

Do you cheer Brother (Kolohe) via WSL webcast or do you wish bad things to happen?

Yes, I cheer him on. He’s family. I basically live at his house when I’m in SC.

Do you remember when American surfers were number one?

When did Kelly win his last title? (2011.)

What do you see when you watch yourself surfing?

I feel like my style is pretty decent and I’m not very good at airs. Which makes sense ’cause I never really try them. I’d rather get barrelled. 

Why do you like barrels over airs?

Getting barrelled is the best thing on earth, in my opinion. 

This is hard shit!

You ain’t alone if you revel in the artistry and pomp of abrupt beachbreaks, like those featured in this excellent short from O’Neill.

In Paradise Lost, part of a series of strike missions around the world, Eli Olsen, Timothy Reyes and Ian Crane meet a swell hitting ‘The Bull’s Mouth’ on Panama’s Caribbean coast.

It is here, where beachbreaks crack like thunder on shallow sandbanks, the trio demonstrate often otherworldly skills at getting under the throwing lips to examine the waves’ interior decoration.

It is a pleasing five or so minutes and proof, I suppose, that not every clip has to have John John Florence or Italo Ferriera to pique your interest.

Whom among the top 18 women could stop little Jackie Doz in a pool contest?

Ain’t a bigger fan of women’s pro surfing than your ol pal DR. I could watch Steph’s swoops, Caroline’s fin-throws and Carissa’s intricate architecture all day long.

But, what has always struck me, and it’s what I tell girls with coaches, no one can do airs with any regularity or style.

Learn to fly and the tour’s yours.

Example:

Carissa almost got move of the year in 2018 with a stuck-in-the-lip-ass-scratching-the-deck frontside reverse. 

Yet little boys have got 540s on tap before their Bar Mitzvah or Holy Confirmation.

I’ve never seen it better realised than this three-minute cut of Jackie Dorian, who is twelve and the son of the former movie star and pro surfer Shane Dorian, and whom we find here howling at the Waco moon.

It’s pure poetry.

Now.

Put Jackie and a top five gal in the pool.

Best air wins.

Who’s got it?

And, is it sexist and brutish to ask?