A little while ago, I took a call from, or maybe it was to, the San Clemente shaper Matt Biolos. He’d told me about his recent trip to Waco, pre-brain gobbling amoeba drama, and said that he’d employed the photographer Mike Muller to do something a little different at the pool.
Can’t remember how much each private session was, maybe $US2500, but Matt threw 5k or 7500 at his team’s sessions.
He told me he wasn’t sure what was going to happen to the footage. A little movie in a few months, maybe.
Here it is.
Muller, according to a recent interview in Surfer magazine (Hello Peter, Todd etc.), “had always wanted to apply his lighting techniques to be able to illuminate waves (and surfers) in the dark of night, but he needed a controlled environment to test out the equipment. So when shaper and Muller’s good friend Matt Biolos invited him to tag along for a …Lost team trip (comprised of the high–flying crew Mason Ho, Yago Dora and Michael Rodrigues) to the Waco wave pool, Muller jumped at the chance and packed his one-of-a-kind underwater strobe lights.”
It was also Mason Ho’s thirtieth birthday. Thirty, can you believe!
If you were asked if you’d like to watch a dozen minutes of English adult learners, each in such a state of concentration they lick the beads of sweat above their lips, staggering along a one-foot wave, you would reply with a stern no.
But, here, in episode five of Vans’ Weird Waves series, which has evolved into a tour of river surfing destinations around the world, and which stars the Puerto Rican surfer Dylan Graves (whom you must never ask about old interviewswhere he said he liked to swish his long hair around women’s breasts, sometimes head-butts his friends when he’s boozed, and likes it “when girls aren’t afraid to let some dirty shit come out. I just like it when they say fuck”), the cynicism quickly seeps away.
What adventure it is to chase a damn river bore from section to section, in a car, sliding down muddy embankments until your ass skin is raw and cracked, and doing it all with your best new pals.
Even better, I would suggest, than an excellent milkshake served by a happy fat waitress.
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"Teiki Ballian has enjoyed perhaps the greatest surf life imaginable. He spent his childhood diving off the side of charter yachts captained by his French father and Martiniquais mother and into lineups the world over. Now, as the new owner of Hollow Tree’s Resort in Sumatra, he enjoys unfettered access to one of the world’s premier right-handers, Lance’s."
Meet: A Man Who Bought Himself a Precious Slice of the Mentawais!
This surfer was raised on a boat in the Caribbean and the Mentawais. Now he owns a piece!
Most of us’ll end up, in some form, working under the whip of an overseer whom we despise and secretly wish we could kidnap, sacrifice and eat.
How much office bullshit will you stomach before you stick the truck in gear and take off into the sunset?
I did a dozen years.
Got out. Poor but free, even if I gotta live on sugary strawberry jam and Cheerios.
Teiki Ballian, who was raised on his parents boat in the Caribbean, first, and, later, in the Mentawais, was never going to wind out his days in the ol office cube.
In this short film by Gabriel Novis, we meet Teiki, who is now thirty three, and the new owner of the $US200 a night Hollow Trees Resort, in front of the iconic righthander that was first discovered by Yamba surfer Lance Night in the 1991.
(Note to readers: call it Lance’s Right.)
“Teiki Ballian has enjoyed perhaps the greatest surf life imaginable. He spent his childhood diving off the side of charter yachts captained by his French father and Martiniquais mother and into lineups the world over. Now, as the new owner of Hollow Tree’s Resort in Sumatra, he enjoys unfettered access to one of the world’s premier right-handers, Lance’s,” writes Novis.
Surfs good, too, he don’t leave any lip undone.
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Cherubic Conner, right, who reads scripture when he's not sinking his rails, and little bro Parker, who daydreams of living in a trailer.
Watch: Conner and Parker Coffin’s three-day North Shore vacay!
Who’s your favourite Coffin? Is it the older brother Conner, who is so beautiful you’d like to harvest his body organs, or little Parker, whose skin looks like grey liver mush?
I’ve always been a Conner fan although he did admit to me, once, that he sent Parker to ER when he smashed his ugly mug into a fire hydrant.
This edit, by their lifelong filmer Ryan Perry, shows the brothers on a three-day furlough from the California winter and into a six-foot North Shore swell.
Of course, the edit is longer than necessary, eleven minutes, but this is the new way of the video vlog, and similar to the formless, and endless, hours of podcasting.
The pair surf Haleiwa because of the Backdoor Shootout going on at the Pipe stretch, they eat at Pupukea Grill and at one point Kelly Slater makes a cameo, the old man scanning the brothers over like a tray of deli slices.
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Liam O'Brien don't need no trick lighting. Billy Lee-Pope
Watch: Australia’s (maybe) Next Big Thing in “I’ll Make you Hot Till You’ve Had Enough!”
Here we examine the Australian surfer Liam O’Brien, a three-time WQS event winner in 2018, in a slick two-and-a-half minute edit he sliced himself.
Liam’s filmer Billy Lee-Pope sent it to me a week or so ago but while I pondered its suitability for patrons of this website, it started popping up everywhere else. Surfer, Stab, and so on.
I said to Billy, if he could get the keys to the file and change the song to something more appropriate to our audience, I would loose on BeachGrit.
After a short consultation, I chose a Rick James classic.
The song, called Give It To Me Baby, encapsulates Liam’s approach to waves.
Give it hard and give it fast. Oowee!
When I came home last night You wouldn’t make love to me You went fast to sleep You wouldn’t even talk to me You said I’m so crazy Coming home intoxicated I said I just wanna love you I just wanna love you baby That is why I’m so elated
C’mon girl, give it to me baby Give it to me baby Give it to me baby (give it to me baby), I betcha I’ll make you hot till you’ve had enough Give it to me baby (give it to me baby) Just give it to me baby Give it to me baby (give it to me baby), I betcha I’ll make you hot till you’ve had enough
Give it to me Give me that stuff that funk that sweet that funky stuff (say what) (Give it to me) Give me that stuff that funk that sweet that funky stuff (say what) Give it to me, give it to me Give it to me, give it to me Give me that stuff That sweet, funky stuff Yoh ho, aw
(Give to me, baby)
When I was high as the sky Out all night just dancing You say let’s go home (c’mon Rick, I’m tired, let’s go home) That’s the time I start romancin’ You say “how can I love you?” (how can I love you, baby?) “When your body keeps on moving” I say “wait til I squeeze you” (oh) Maybe then you’ll start to groovin’ (c’mon girl)
Give it to me baby (give it to me baby) Give it to me baby (give it to me baby), I betcha I’ll make you hot like you had enough Give it to me baby (give it to me baby) Just give it to me baby Give it to me baby (give it to me baby), I betcha I’ll make you hot like you had enough
Give it to me Give me that stuff that funk that sweet that funky stuff (say what) (Give it to me) Give me that stuff that funk that sweet that funky stuff (say what) Give it to me, give it to me Give it to me, give it to me Give me that stuff That sweet, funky stuff Yoh ho, aw
(Hey Girl) Give it to me what you say Give it to me what you say (Give it to me) what you say (Give it to me) what you say (Hey girl) Give it to me what you say Give it to me what you say Give it to me Give it to me (hey girl) Give it to me what you say Give it to me what you say Give it to me Give it to me (hey, girl) Give it to me what you say Give it to me right away Give it to me Give it to me (hey, girl) Give it to me what you say Give it to me what you say Give it to me
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by @theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
