Dream Bintang Rotation: Ian Crane, Eithan Osborne, Mason Ho & Tom Curren In Indo 

The power of the anecdote is real. 

Writing classes emphasize the anecdote’s succinct ability to reveal character insights through quick, impactful stories. Show, don’t tell, is the idea. They are the foundation of good profile pieces. The above edit isn’t a profile, but it contains a very good anecdote that reveals something about Eithan Osborne that could certainly fit in a deep dive on Ventura’s Skinny Meathead. 

While on a trip to Indonesia with Ian Crane and Jacob Vanderwork, Eithan attempted his best silverback gorilla impression by walking/crawling through the jungle to the riverbed. Unfortunately, along the way, he encountered the Gympie Gympie, AKA The Suicide Plant, the poisonous and extremely painful nettle plant found in rainforest areas of Indonesia, Malaysia and northern Australia. 

There’s no footage of the incident here, just Crane’s words on it. The microscopic needles poured toxins into Eithan’s exposed flesh. Medical experts have likened the pain getting bit by a scorpion. Even after a scrubbing by the locals, the damage lingered. But as he did with his compromised shoulder at the Vans Pipe Masters and the latter stages of Surf100, Eithan soldiered on. As Jake Kelley remarked in Skinny Meathead of Eithan’s disposition, “He’s like a mix between and a rat and Komodo dragon. He can’t die.”

“The state of panic and look of absolute hopelessness on his face when he got back to his phone and googled what the Gympie Gympie side effects are was pure,” Crane reports. “We thought it would be a trip ender, but Eithan is bulletproof and the Suicide Plant only slowed him down for about three days before he painfully surfed the rest of the microscopic poisonous needles out of his body.”

A colorful anecdote indeed. Watch “Gympie Gympie” to see Eithan shed those toxins… and a surprise cameo from Mason Ho and Tom Curren.