Watch “Junoesque” Solomon Storm Bailey in “I despise the hypocrisy of my immoral peers who parade like Gods of Olympus!”

Gobble meticulously prepared bait…

I’m a sucker for believable, beautifully made, and paralyzingly suspenseful epics about brave people in the middle of the ocean battling overwhelming odds against nature to stay alive, but rarely have I seen one that can hold an audience hostage like Soli… Every element is so perfect that it left me shaking and devastated.

And, it’s a love story, too.

Writes the filmer Morgan Maasen,

“(Ten years ago), I was immediately struck by the incredible demeanour of the teenager. Polite, quiet, but so fiercely determined to make his mark, Soli was rising through the junior ranks and dreaming of make the World Tour. As time went on, we crossed paths countless times in random, far-flung places… but this last year i was bestowed both the pleasure of travel with him to Indonesia to score perfect waves, and to watch his inaugural year competing on the tour. The highs of his performances in incredible surf, and lows of watching him struggle with the complexities – and literal luck – that comes with being a professional surfer, was nothing short of amazing, and as I release this short film, I cannot express how proud I am of this human’s fruition into a young adult.”

 

 

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Watch: Mason Ho’s tribute to his Uncle Derek, “He was a scientist of fun! Rest in peace, power and love!”

"He was blown out of the barrel more than most will know."

Two weeks ago, the great Derek Ho, brother to Michael, uncle to Mason and Coco, four-time Triple Crown winner, two-time Pipe Master and Hawaii’s first-ever men’s world champ (1993) died, aged fifty-five.

In this twelve-miinte short from Mason Ho and Rory Pringle, we get what Mason describes as a “tiny glimpse into UNCLE D’s final 5 years. All clips were filmed in the last 5 years. You can see he was living life to the fullest till the very end! This man was/is an INCREDIBLE Father, Brother, Uncle, Husband & Friend. Always inspiring people around him and BLOWING MINDS in the water or on land. The first ever Hawaiian World Champion. A scientist of FUN! 100% one of the Kings of Pipeline and was blown out of the barrel more than most will know. We will forever carry on your energy and passion for life and surfing.”

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Watch: Pool shark Kelly Slater vs teen prodigies Jackson Dorian and Erin Brooks at Waco tank!

The Champ vs the Kids…

Here’s a real interesting drone study of three surfers, one an eleven-time world champion of forty-eight orbits, and a couple of Hawaiian kids, both just thirteen, all given the same high-ass ramps to riff on at Waco’s American Wave Machines tank.

We see the immortal, Kelly, steel cable legs and heavy shoulders, sleek muscles undulating under his inky skin, peppering the wave with jabs and hooks while little Jackie Doz and Erin Brooks hit the ramp with matador finesse, flying through the air like frisbees.

Kelly, as revealed here, spent two days at the Texas pool with Shane and Jackson Dorian, and with cameos from various up-and-comers.

 

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Watch: Coco Ho nail air-reverses during one long, hot weekend in Texas, “You’re gonna walk on water today!”

Pure tiger sweat!

If anyone is deserving of media attention, it’s the Hawaiian surfer Coco Ho, little sister of Mason, daughter of Mike and Brian and niece of the king of Pipeline and Hawaii’s first world champ, Dez. 

In this short film, which follows Coco over the course of a few sessions at the Waco tank, we see the radical progression of a surfer, average in the air to begin, a real  greenhorn, whipping turnip tops at the end. 

Coco’s man, Mark McMorris ostensibly a snowboarder, has an equally satisfying surf-cation, his frontside airs also having a pickled tang. 

The value in this movie, I think, is in demonstrating the accessibility of a manoeuvre plenty of surfers think is beyond them.

It ain’t.

 

 

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Wealthy patron gifts super-vlogger Jamie O’Brien free all-day pass to Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch; JOB refuses appearance fee; returns favour by getting patron’s baby girl front-row seat to famous barrel!

World's most famous surfer makes children's dreams come true…

This might make a few of the meaner sons of bitches here deposit their watermelon seeds onto the ground, but there’s a real good case to be made that Jamie O’Brien, the flame haired king of Pipeline, is the most popular surfer in the world.

A YouTube channel with half-a-million subscribers, a whole damn army of fans in every corner of the world, oh it’s as plain as the shining sun.

And, therefore, I’ll posit that the daddy that invited Jamie to the Surf Ranch on the occasion of his son, and son’s pals, graduations got himself a helluva deal.

Jamie refused an appearance fee, even the airfares of his entourage, and made an episode of his insanely popular vlog of the day.

Fifty gees or thereabouts and the kids get their heads on YouTube and the daddy’s baby girl gets a wild tube experience that would put a sleepy tingle in anyone’s legs.

When I call Jamie, he is shopping in California, and he tells me he also visited the Tom Lochtefeld pool in Palm Springs with plans to go back there in a week.

He says the Slater pool was an oddly beautiful thing, difficult to work out, powerful overall, yet soft in the lip and says of the thirty or so waves he caught, he only stayed on his feet all the way through to the end on one.

Getting the daddy’s kid barrelled, he says, was a challenge he accepted because it “was a test of all my barrel-riding capabilities.”

It’s sixteen minutes in.

Gets good when the kid falls, Jamie scoops her up and pushes through the tube with a combination of powerful arms and excellent timing.

Re: Palm Springs,

Jamie says the vibe, with its electricity provided by Cheyne Magnusson, a man so chubby he hasn’t seen his privates in twenty years, and his dangerous friend Kalani Robb, was “energetic.”

“Some places have no limits,” he says. “This is is like BSR in Palm Springs but with better technology and with a cooler vibe with a real twist on it.”

Right now that pool is running off eight chambers.

After the rebuild, new pool with more concave in the bottom, it’ll have sixteen.

“The waves are getting better and better every day,” he says.

The Palm Springs Surf Club episode drops Monday, US time.test of l

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