VBS.tv

For those of you who don't go to Vice Tv to check out the latest and greatest segments, you should! vbs.tv has a bunch of different channels with tons of really cool crap that will keep you entertained for hours on end and it's actually really informative.
This is a piece they did on Alex Knost, there are 3 different parts and this is the first, I thought it turned out really good.

Extra

Steve Sherman is officially unofficial, which means he won't be working at Surfing mag full time as staff photo editor and he will be working full time on the road with his camera in hand and the wind at his back. I'm looking forward to seeing all the great stuff he's going to get and I think Surfing will be as well.






The first WQS (5*@ Sebastion Inlet FLA) went down this past week and Daniel Jones got equal 17, which is a really good way to start out the year. Daniel was stoked and he's decided he'll continue to grow his hawaiian mullet.





Evan Slater is an official honorary RVCA team rider. He's a bad-ass big wave charger, just made the finals of the Mavericks contest last weekend, and every time I see him he is sporting RVCA shirt. Here is some proof I found at the Surf Expo trade show, he's being interviewed about the new T2 surftech designs.






I didn't know there were Kangaroos in Florida. My hotel roommate and regional team rider Trevor Mathewson fell deeply in love with this cuddly buddy.

NEW AD CAMPAIGN

Check it out!!! This is how our new ads are going to look, pretty fresh huh..

Christian sighting in Bali

I got an email from our RVCA Bali correspondent Thai Little, apparently Christian has been running around with his son Greyson skating and surfing up a storm. Christian has fit into the Bali mix perfectly, everyone is always stoked to have him around and he's been adopted as one of the boys. If you can't tell by Rob Machado's face, he was really surprised to see him down there and Taylor Steele is even considering him for the final section of his next movie. Well, when I get more updates, I'll post some more photos.





Christian, Ratu, Rob Machado, Taylor Steele and Marlon Gerber.




Marlon Gerber and Rizal with the bali boys, Christian's head in the bottom.
On the far left you can see Thai Little's profile.

Go Seabiscuit!!!

Casey Brown is in Narabeen competing in the World Juniors, which started today. He made his first heat and moves on to the second round where he will do man on man competition. So check it out on ASP.com where you can link in to watch it live. Australia is 18 hours ahead, so it is in the future. It is 10:00am here but 5:00am there, so that means Casey will surf later today for tomorrows competition. GO CASEY GO!!!

Heat 10: Casey Brown (HAW) vs Kento Takahashi (JPN)

BIG WAVES ARE FOR RUSSELL SMITH

Russell Smith has been nominated for the biggest wave of the year award, which is pretty big... It all went down December 4th at Ghost Trees in Carmel, CA. The waves were around 50-60ft, as quoted by Russell, "It was pretty f*cking heavy. I surfed all day without eating anything, it was insane!" Stay tuned and check out the site below where you can see Russell's amazing wave.

http://www.billabongxxl.com/biggest_wave/index.html

NORCAL SURFING

Surfing in Northern California is like climbing Everest, just in the fact that it is freezing cold. Before every session you need to get mentally prepared put on the wet suit and paddle out in the harsh conditions. The one good thing is there are always good waves around every corner, so it is worth the pain. Like my football coach would say ," NO PAIN NO GAIN!!"





The Santa Cruz Surf Posse.





Surfing out at Moss Landing today we ran into Dino Andino and Mike "Snips" Parsons. They love surfing so much they drove 7 hours to surf for two days in the freezing cold conditions and are headed home today.

Merry Christmas___ SHREDD it!!!

This made my Christmas dreams come true, a pink surf cab was the best present ever. SHAKA kaliki Maka.

HAWAII hangout

This time of the year in Hawaii is really rainy, which gets annoying fast. The one good thing is that with rain comes beautiful rainbows.




Danny and Bob, spending another afternoon in the sun at the quiksilver house.




Rory was holding it down over on the NS. He's sporting a sick mohawk with the Mr. T fades in the side, it looks mental.




Kalani and Bol were battling on the foozeball table. Bol is one of the Bali boys, I spent some time with all of them over at Rory's house, they are awesome.




Casey Brown and CJ Kanuha, Big Island brothers. This photo was taken by Brophy from the PRICKS, he's the man. The Pricks played a few shows on Oahu this past month and everyone was into their deal. Pricks for life.

Hawaii Lemonade

On the final day of the Pipe masters Kalani brought a lemonade stand to the beach to raise money for kids with Cancer. He was raking in the cash and everyone was giving him props.





Kalani making a major sale.




Ford brought his lunch money to the beach.




Ford supporting his team mate Kalani in his efforts to raise some money.

Hawaii: Etnies Party

Surfing Mag's Travis Ferre and Evan Slater ( always sporting RVCA).




Robert Hennessy and CJ Kanuha, island bradas partying.




I AM A ROBOT killed it, their set was really energetic and everyone got their boogie going.

RVCA San Fran

Russell and me out front of the RVCA store in SF. The day after the ceremony we charged to SF to explore. The RVCA store was amazing, everything in it was tight and tied into the RVCA family. It is right on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, so many things happpening and really interesting people. I haven't been to a big city in a long time so it was really eye opening and intriguing.




Russell, waiting for the store to open.




Haight Street has some interesting things to look at, here is one of them.




The Golden Gate always reminds me of my favorite TV show Full House, Jesse rocks!

Russel Smith-Good Morning America

Watch all the way to the end because that is where Russell has a classic cameo.

Mavericks Opening Day Ceremony

The Opening Day Ceremoy for the Mavericks surf contest was a media frenzy. Every local and major news station was there to cover the event which officially announces the waiting period for the event that will carry through from December to March. All the big wave chargers were there to accept the invite and take part in the festivities. It started on the beach where event director Jeff Clarke announced all the invitees, then carried over to a party where they had some great food, a band and did a lottery to announce the heats. The whole day was buzzing with everyone talking about the last major swell. All the boys were re-living their best rides and exchanging war stories, there was a lot of testosterone in the room. RVCA is proud to their team rider Russell Smith as one of 22 invitees to this prestigious event.




All the surfers, lined-up with their big wave weapons. Notice the amount of media people standing below.




Russell in the line-up, standing next to Grant "Twiggy" Baker, last years champ.




ABC's Good Morning America, interviewing brothers Smith about big wave surfing and the last major swell where they towed into Ghost Trees. On that same day there was a tragic death of a fellow big wave charger, Pete Davi.




Russell and his brother Tyler. Last year Russell made the semi-finals and Tyler got 2nd. Brothers Smith are pretty solid.




Russell and his girl Paige.




Russell and Jeff Clarke, picking a number that will determine which heat he will surf in.




Lucky number 3, putting Russell in heat number 1




Shawn Rhodes, Russell Smith, Brock Little, Greg Long and Jamie Sterling. All the heats were stacked, with only 22 competitors and all the worlds top big wave riders, there aren't any easy heats.

SURF NIGHT

This past weekend in conjunction with the Triple Crown, all the surf industry came together to give back to the North Shore community by showing up at Sunset Elementary to sign autographs and give away free product. With the worlds best waves in their back yard, being a professional surfer is a no brainer, especially when they come to your school and give you free things. At my school we had some guys come with yo yo's and do a demo, it was lame.




Rory and Kalani, representing.



Casey Brown stoking out the groms with some autographs.



The team was in full effect with the RVCA banner waving high.



Daniel, Kalani and Casey. The girls in the photo look the same age as Kalani, I'm sure they chase him around school all day.

MAVERICKS SURF CONTEST

RVCA TEAM RIDER RUSSELL SMITH WILL SURF IN THE MAVERICKS CONTEST

The Highly Anticipated Mavericks Surf Contest® is Back

The Official 2007/2008 Contest Window Will Open on December 7, 2007

HALF MOON BAY, Calif., Nov. 13 2007 - On just 24 hours notice between December 7, 2007 and March 31, 2008, 24 legendary big-wave surfers will make the trek to Half Moon Bay, home of Mavericks, one of the most majestic and infamous surf breaks on earth, to test their individual skills and vie for the highly sought-after 2007/2008 Mavericks Surf Contest® title. Competitors will face the dangerous elements of the frigid northern California waters in search of the perfect ride on waves reaching heights of 30 to 40 feet.

The international roster of invited surfers, which remains the same as last season with the exception of the alternates, consists of, in alphabetical order: Matt Ambrose, Grant “Twiggy” Baker, Ion Banner, Ross Clarke-Jones, Kenny “Skindog” Collins, Randy Cone, Danilo Couto, Shane Desmond, Brock Little, Greg Long, Josh Loya, Garrett McNamara, Peter Mel, Shawn Rhodes, Ryan Seelbach, Evan Slater, Tyler Smith, Russell Smith, Jamie Sterling, Anthony Tashnick, Darryl “Flea” Virostko, Grant Washburn, John Whittle and Zach Wormhoudt.

Surfline

Check this video up on surfline today, it's got some footage of Russell Smith, Pascal and Me from Northern California.
This is the link to the video but if it doesn't click through then highlight and paste.

http://www.surfline.com/video/video_player/video_player.cfm?id=12539

Also, there has been a Nike 6.0 Baja to Santa Cruz trip that has some insane photos of Casey Brown.

http://www.surfline.com/surfnews/photo_bamp.cfm?id=12063

BJ PENN.COM

Go check out BJ Penn.com and watch the videos from the signings RVCA did with him on Oahu. I throw down a little hosting at the end of the North Shore segment, I'm trying to impress my brother Tito who hosted 54321. Make sure you check out the rest of BJ's site because there is a lot to see, like the tips on fighting or the real mixed martial arts fights between big Island bradas.

PAT FALLON

This photo is priceless. Pat Fallon is a RVCA east coast rider and if you can't tell from the photo, he's a legend. Its an older photo and he's not looking so IRIE now but red-dreads are very rare and he should consider growing those things out again.
YAE PAT!!

Alex Knost

This was a cool piece that was in SURFING about his Gato Heroi by Robin Kegel. The best part is that it appears in the contents page and also right before Matt Biolis' shaping profile, Matt loves Gato Heroi so I'm sure he's stoked.

TURKEY with R-U-S-S-E-L-L

I spent most of Thanksgiving up in Santa Cruz with Machete fight lead singer and RVCA team rider Russell Smith. He took us surfing at some really splendid breaks, first we scored Natural Bridges and then Mitchelles Cove (there will be a video posted on Surfline soon). Overall it was an insane Turkey day and we all gave thanks for the waves by shredding them to the fullest. Also, Machete Fight is playing next weekend at the Catalyst so I'll keep you posted on exactly when.




Here is Russell with his scary Turkey eating face, gobble gobble.




This is one of the many unfamiliar sights you'll see after leaving the concrete jungle, some real broke back cowboy barns with cattle on the the range.




Here is another little sheep farm that sat right at the edge of the ocean, somewhere in Big Sur.




This is me and my brother before going surfing at one of my favorite waves, it is one of the best setups ever- empty line up and rolliing hills.

Daniel Jones- Man On Fire

Daniel Jones has been Killing it, he's slugging it out in the QS, making and still going in the round of 64 in the Haliewa 6*prime contest. He even made the local paper, holding it down as the home town hero.