Mick: “About listening to my stomach.”

By Chas Smith

9 years ago

The most popular surfer in the world takes a stand against sex trafficking!

Here’s a serious question…has Michael Eugene Fanning usurped Kelly Slater’s “most-popular-surfer-in-the-world” throne this year? First there was the shark play, then helping a young child overcome cancer and now? He is lending his voice to stop sex trafficking.

Mick is an ambassador for Project Sparta, a gym that pledges 100% of fees toward bashing the sex slave industry. “It’s a scary trade…” he says “…No one really talks about it and we’re losing girls, and young boys, into a world we never know about.”

The fact that he has become the go to for wonderful charities bodes well for the White Lightening brand. He moves the people! He thrills! And, of course, there will always be that shark incident. The news report, detailing his miraculous escape from the jaws of curiosity, began with it which prompted Mick to say that he listens to his stomach these days and gets out of the water when feeling uneasy. He also said he likes to surf with lots and lots and lots and lots of people.

“I’m not worried about the crowds, I tell ya. The more the merrier!”

Embracing all-comers will only continue to enhance Mick’s status and so again I ask, is Mick Fanning more popular, worldwide/across all-platforms, than Kelly Slater?

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“You know what gets my dick hard? Helping out my friends.” John C Reilly, narrator of View from a Blue Moon, with the relentlessly fantastic surfer-filmed duo John John Florence and Mr Blake Vincent Kueny.

“Is John John Florence gay?”

By Derek Rielly

9 years ago

And other funny keyword searches that land you right here…

One of the fascinating parts of operating a website is watching the behaviour of your readers. Who are you? Where are you from? What are your personal kinks?

In the print game, no one knows, knew.

The closest I ever came to identifying who read the jams of whatever mag I was editing was via those surveys we stuck in the mags and from focus groups that’d cost 20 gees and yield nothing.

Readers in focus groups do this very human thing where they say what the think elevates ‘em in the eye of the other participants or sub-consciously say what they think you want to hear. And, besides, who knows what their true motivations and likes are?

The problem, as any student of human behaviour would explain, is that surveys are filled out by people who like filling out surveys or ‘cause they want to win whatever trinket you had as an incentive.

Readers in focus groups do this very human thing where they say what they think elevates ‘em in the eye of the other participants or sub-consciously say what they think you want to hear. And, besides, who knows what their true motivations and likes are?

Your electronic movements, however, are beautiful to watch.

For those unfamiliar with Google Analytics, it’s an application that tracks website traffic. More than that, it allows publishers to see how many readers are on the site, what country they’re from, the electronic device they’re accessing your site from, what story they’re reading, where they came from and where they go after you.

And, tellingly, what keyword searches got ‘em there.

It’s become a game between Chas Smith and me to send each other funny keyword searches as they come up, briefly, on the Google Analytics dashboard.

Like this. Is true? asked Chas. We laugh because it couldn’t be more absurd!

Who taps these words in? Man with Bear fetish?

Is that you Peter Taras?

Drowning fantasies?

Healthy young man with beach-y fantasies?

Lovely Latinas!

Angry South African man?

A Kolohe Andino fan! For life! (Maybe me!)

Reliable medical advice for advanced cancers?

Do the secret kinks of man make you laugh?

What keyword searches lurk in the recesses of your web history?

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Slater & the murder of Amy Gellert

By Derek Rielly

9 years ago

The champ remembers the childhood pal killed in a still unresolved murder…

You might’ve read here a couple of days ago, a little editorialising about Kelly Slater’s hot fingers on Instagram on Twitter. It seems like it only takes the slightest provocation to send the Champ into an electronic rage, replying to nobodies as if their opinion actually matters. This, is typical.

But Kelly is a man of substance, of complex emotions, and he mixes his petty online wars with thoughtful, and often moving, posts. A few minutes ago, we see Kelly at six years old, in a class photo. His caption reads:

“1st grade class when I was about 6 or 7 years old (2nd from R). Funny to look back at old shots and remember us as kids. Still close with a few of these little humans. Most of this class went from Kindergarten to graduation together. Far left in blue was a friend named #AmyGellert who was sadly murdered in our hometown in a still #UnsolvedMystery in the early 90’s. Her parents were also attacked yet lived thru it. There was a show recently dedicated to reopening her case and finding any potential info about her story. One of her brothers now works for @patagonia and another was my best surf buddy in high school then became a military guy and was injured at war in both Iraq and Afghanistan and now works in some sort of secret service work, I think. It would be a real blessing if her case were ever solved. Google her name and read about the case. Amy was a good egg. We all miss her.”

Amy Gellert was stabbed to death in 1994 by a masked man with a gun and a knife after she found him in her parent’s home. The details of this unsolved murder are ghastly but if you want to read about it, you might as well click here.

Or watch a 43-minute documentary on the case here.

It always surprises me, and perhaps it shouldn’t by now, how many unsolved murders just disappear into nothingness through the passage of time. Detectives retire, people with useful information never offered die, others forget.

And yet the horror of these events never truly disappears, even as the killers still walk among us.

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"You cannot be a hero without being a coward," said the playwright George Bernard Shaw. So wise! Watch Filipe turn this worst-heat-in-the-forty-year-history-of-professional-surfing into the motivation that gets him over the ledge at Pipeline in December.

Scenario: Filipe Toledo fails Pipe, wins title

By Derek Rielly

9 years ago

What sort of questions would surround a Filipe Toledo world title?

When I think of Pipeline in season it evokes the pleasure of seeing the world’s best surfers amid the turbulence of the world’s heaviest wave. Pipeline amplifies weakness and has no time for gratuitous theatrics, claims aside.

In three weeks, six surfers will compete to win the 2015 world title: Mick Fanning, Adriano De Souza, Owen Wright, Julian Wilson, Gabriel Medina and Filipe Toledo.

Five of the six are comfortable at Pipe. One is not.

The scenarios are many, and you can read the spreadsheet here.

Most what-ifs I’ve read presume the waves are going to be six-feet or better, a classic mid-sized west-north-west swell with south-east winds.

But the cumbersome nature of the WSL’s format, with its 36 surfers and its two no-loser rounds (rounds one and four), and the unlikelihood of a swell stretching for such a period, means crucial heats have a nightmarish tenacity to be run in poor waves.

Run down a list of the Pipeline Masters winners and if it ain’t Kelly, John John, Jamie O’Brien, KP or Andy Irons in the last dozen years, it wasn’t classic Pipe.

So what is possible this year if the first few rounds of Pipe run in marginal surf, is the elimination of Mick Fanning. And if Mick finishes 13th or worse, this scenario comes into play.

Let’s examine.

– Owen Wright & Julian Wilson will need a 1st

– Gabriel Medina will need a 3rd or better

– Adriano de Souza will need a 9th or better

– Filipe Toledo will need a 13th or better to clinch the World Title

Therefore, Filipe Toledo, who made pro surfing history by not catching a wave in a crucial heat at Teahupoo and later explaining it away with an unconvincing story about a sore elbow, could swing through one heat in crummy surf, lose when it gets good, and win the world title.

Can you imagine a world title with more question marks around it?

How would history record such a thing?

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Blood Feud: Slater vs “Serious haters”

By Derek Rielly

9 years ago

“Jelly Slater is a washed up old bald piece of shit” and more!

Do you remember, and it was just three weeks ago so maybe yes, the contest where fans had a chance of winning a six-day trip to Tavarua with Kelly Slater and Shane Dorian?

To enter all you had to do was peel off a little cash, the proceeds going to a few of Doz and Kelly’s fav charities. In the original story, which you can read here, I joked that “maybe you can help Kelly with his prolific Twitter ripostes.”

Who knew my ability for prophecy was so finely honed!

An hour ago, and after a landslide of digital hate, Slater launched into one of his now-regular lectures on Instagram.

Let’s read.

kellyslaterI’m gonna do a little #SocialExperiment here. @shanedorian and I just had a giveaway and raised a phenomenal amount of money for four wonderful charities. A random winner was chosen as was promised and there are lots of people upset they didn’t get chosen or that a non surfer won. I get that. There are some wonderful comments from many people but a serious tone of negativity from probably a quarter or more of the comments. Just know that if you’re gonna comment publicly that you’d better be able to stand up for your words and that I’m happy to give you the stage as I’m gonna right here. I’m gonna take this down shortly but I just want an honest discussion about your thoughts on this sort of thing. Some serious haters and trolls came out of the woodwork to bash me personally and this process..some confused, some harsh. I’ve been called every name in the book. It’s actually entertaining but it’s kinda sad. I mean, I didn’t ever call up and yell at the people from Publisher’s Clearinghouse after I was promised $3M in the mail but didn’t receive it. Why ya’ll mad? All I can say is I am truly glad someone with these kinds of attitudes didn’t win and get a chance to experience Fiji in two weeks. Who knows, Staci and her niece might just leave this trip with a newfound love in their lives.

Do you remember when Kelly was hurt by all the sops thrown at him for the price of entry to Outerknown clothing?

Let’s examine.

You’re gonna use my mom against me? My mom couldn’t afford lunch when I was growing up! I didn’t have two pairs of clean socks as a teenager, literally. So please tell me what exactly is it I owe you again? Someone got a gun to your head to purchase a higher end brand item? Did someone say this was a high volume, low price play? The amount of hatred is next level from dipshits like yourself. I’m a big boy and can stand up for myself. Feel free to unfollow or be blocked. No problem. I honestly don’t mind either way. When the surf product comes out people will learn about it. If people actually want to know the story of how the brand was created and what things cost to be done on certain levels, that will come out. The personal attacks and name calling have been nothing short of unbelievable. People need to grow up.

There’s something to be said for public shaming but sometimes I think Kelly would do well to occasionally turn off his phone. Responding to the snarling population borders on vulgarity and, I predict, doesn’t produce the sense of well-being one gets from being disconnected, even briefly, from the digital world.

But, you? What do you think?

Is Kelly is a little too close to social media?

Do you like the theatre of his lectures and the back and forthing with the greatest athlete the world has ever seen?

More Kelly Slater blood feuds here!

And here!

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Eat beach grit spam!