You don’t have to dig very deep into the crevices of the internet to enjoy clips of aerial surfing. It’s on display anywhere and everywhere you look and surfing’s pool of above-the-lip specialists gets deeper and deeper all the time. Still, there are days you come across something that just stands out. Kael Walsh just accomplished that.
“There’s so much stuff out there today, but I feel like a lot of it is made to only watch once — by the next week, there’s already a new episode or whatever,” Walsh says. “I still watch my favorite surf movies all the time, and I feel like that’s missing. I want to make things that people watch again and again.”
The story of Idiot Box — an 11-minute project that clearly required many hours in the water — starts in the early days of the pandemic. Taking advantage of the 2020 lockdowns and pandemonium, Walsh benefited from a bit of isolation in West Oz with nothing more to do than surf empty lineups, explore, and go for punt after punt after punt.
“When Covid started kicking off, it was one of the first places to go into lockdown,” Walsh explains. “Then they never really lifted it. Nobody could get in without a proper exemption — and even if you had that, you had to quarantine for 14 days. But if you were in, there weren’t really any restrictions. We were fully isolated. While the rest of the world was dealing with it, we were just doing our thing.”
Walsh’s aerial prowess takes over out the gate. This isn’t a collection of air reverses punctuating waist-high Southern California rides. No, Walsh hucks massive punts on waves that have some teeth. Watch, enjoy, and take notes.
