Mason Ho & the Ridlle of Infinite Fun
Something about Mason Ho’s surfing just makes you want to keep watching. Sure, he has the prerequisite cache of tricks and skills in his repertoire to be called world-class, but it’s the little jinks, the spontaneous body-English and the old-school jives that make his whole approach an act of untainted self-expression. It’s like watching a contemporary dance on a wave – a magnetic fusion of disco and jazz with classical samples. In the end, perhaps what we like most about Mason is that he reminds us that’s it’s ok to just surf the way you feel.
For several years Mason’s filmer and friend, Rory Pringle, has been tasked with capturing Mason’s unfettered genius. Together they have travelled the world, but mostly they just roam the island of Oahu like a couple of surfing beatniks, seeking out the best or quirkiest waves to ride and shoot on any given day. Frequently this results in a situation where Mason winds up playing chicken with rocks on some obscure corner of volcanic coast. Typically, he rides a different board in every clip and these days Mason’s west-side pal, Sheldon Paishon, is along for the ride. The soaring riffs of Hendrix and Santana are frequently called on to complement Mason’s throwback approach and the end result of these eclectic surf jams is sublime, bite-sized surfing entertainment.
We recently fired a bunch of questions to Mason, and Rory was kind of enough to record his responses. Like his surfing, Mason’s answers were animated, unpredictable and engaging. The window into the workings of Mason’s colourful mind certainly suggests he and Rory have taken the world one step closer to solving the riddle of infinite fun.
How did you and Rory become a team?
I guess the first time I got drunk in my life was with Rory, so I’d say we were pretty much a team right then. And that was way before we were filming.
How does the collaboration process work? Deciding where and what to film?
The collab’ is just to call up Rory any time and any day, and the where and when is just when we get in the car and start circling around and looking at all the spots – it’s kinda pretty easy, as long as we are both free that day, which we usually are.
Sometimes it looks like your life is one big game of chicken! (As in find the rockiest, knuckliest and gnarliest little spot and play chicken with the reef and rocks?)
Playing chicken with the rocks, it’s unfortunate, but it’s probably one of my favourite things to do. I don’t like to take off and shoot right at the
