Kaipo and Madonna
Ooowee, he a good looking son of a bitch! Madonna ain't immune! Invited him straight to Japan after the shoot! | Photo: Herb Ritts/Rolling Stone

Gallery: When Madonna Loved Kaipo!

Step back into 1985 with the WSL's newest stud!

Did the sexy-as-a-wolf Kaipo Guerrero bolt you to your computer during the Tahiti Pro too? The former pro surfer (Hawaiian champ, NSSA open champ, three years top 16 Bud Pro Tour) has a rough-hewn danger that takes the imaginative viewer down a rabbit-hole of scenarios. Kaipo ain’t no twink!

Can you count the ways? Don’t it make you want to POV a PAWG gittin’ IR on that BHC? No? Yes?

But being in the spotlight ain’t new for this waterman who learned to surf at Waikiki and who has made four crossings of the Molokai channel in his little canoe.

Kaipo, who is 48 years old, has always carried the gun of ultra-handsome. Back in 1985, when he was eighteen years old, he was the star of a Herb Ritts shoot with the most popular singer in the world, Madonna. The gal loved that sugar so much she stole him away to Japan.

Thirty-one years later, Kaipo has returned to call the most prestigious events in surfing, including the now-legendary Tahiti Pro.

But that time, that era, when the world revolved around Madonna and Madonna revolved around a teenager from Oahu, oh man, it’s beautiful.

Relive here the Herb Ritts shoot.

Spread one: Madonna jams uke with Kaipo on her left, in pyjamas. In green suit, Kaipo grasps the New York crooner.

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Where’s Kaipo? Black shirt, grey jacket. Kelia Moniz’ daddy Tony is there having his foot grabbed by Madonna but y’know it’s the stud in the back who eating good.

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Kelly Slater: “Help me trash the ocean!”

Yesterday, Kelly Slater had the Wavegarden in his sights. Today, the ocean!

The greatest ever surfer made his last request known today. He wants his friends to pollute the ocean! Each and every one of them! Over and over again!

Kelly Slater took to Instagram at around 3 pm (Pacific Time Zone), imploring his loved ones in bold font:

When I die, line my friends up and have them toss bits of my ashes it tubes one after another.

Seriously.

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It makes sense that he would want the ocean to look like the Ganges in India, choked with charred human corpses, because he has a competing technology, the World Surf League Wave Co. formerly known as the Kelly Slater Wave Co.

Who would ever go in the ocean again? Inland wave lake businesses would explode in popularity and Kelly’s relatives/WSL will own the only relevant model!

Yesterday he took out his remaining ocean alternative, the Wavegarden, through sheer public embarrassment.

And of course I kid (not about him taking out Wavegarden through sheer public embarrassment). It is a beautiful sentiment, some of the greatest surfers of all time burying their king in the tubes. Him being in his most natural spot forever and ever more. Etc.

When you go, where do you want your remains?

I read a story recently that suggested our fascination with cremation is robbing future generations of history. There will no longer be any graveyards for people to go read names, dates. etc.

When I die, dig a pit at the Hollywood Forever cemetery, toss my bones in and stick a big stone at the head end reading:

HERE LIES CHAS SMITH

ummmmm I haven’t come up with the rest yet.

I’ll leave it to you!


Ummmm yeah. We're just filling the Wavegarden. It might be a minute.
Ummmm yeah. We're just filling the Wavegarden. It might be a minute.

Finally: A dystopian wave pool!

All this damned short-sighted talk. One company is brave enough to peer into the future!

I’ve been reading some things (mostly comments on BeachGrit to be honest) about how climate change will destroy waves due to rising sea levels etc. and we’ll be bereft except for wave pools.

Our salvations!

Except how many dystopian movies do you watch? Waterworld is the only one I can think of that paints our future wet. All the others, Mad Max: The Road Warrior, Mad Max Fury Road, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, etc. paint it bone dry.

And so where are we going to get water to fill the Wavegarden and the @WSLWAVECO pools?

(frowny face)

Surf will be over.

But not if YouRiding Games has anything to say about it. They just released a surf simulator for your “ultimate virtual surf session!” Let’s read about it!

The Virtual Surf game constitutes the alliance of three avant-guarde technologies with the Oculus Rift, Microsoft Kinect and the YouRiding Games tech expertise – authentic specialists of surf video games since 2007. With these synergies, this 2.0 version gives the impression of being transported to the most beautiful surf breaks in the world.

The virtual waves have been barreling since last summer and over thirty thousand visitors to the surf museum in Biarritz (France) have shared the surf stoke… virtually.

Along with the amazing list of available waves, would-be surfers can know ride the hollowest reef wave on the planet… Teahupo’o in Tahiti. Plus, if long shreddable tubes are your cup of tea, then you would choose the long point break on Australia’s Gold Coast… Snapper Rocks.
Not to worry, all the epic waves from version 1.0 are still available (Côte des Basques, Belharra, Mundaka, La gravière, Lacanau).

Today, Virtual Surf gives the opportunity for everyone to “Get out of the barrel at Teahupo’o and follow the reflection of the sun in a glassy ocean… It is an incredible experience to live at least once, even without being a real surfer”, says Mike Jegat, founder of YouRiding Games. The team focuses deeply on the wave mechanics, the color of the ocean and the appearance in order to give the illusion that you are truly surfing real waves.

Taking full advantage of the current technologies, YouRiding is able to deliver beautiful graphics that put you directly in the surf. One of the coolest new features is implementing the position of the sun and it’s realistic reflection on the water’s surface. Your epic virtual sunset surf is waiting.

After taking off on the wave, the player can now start the wave with a Check Turn, slide into a ten second Barrel then exit the ever popular wave Claim. Follow that up with a Top turn, a Roller then a beautiful Cutback. Finally, regain speed in order to do an Air before the wave closes out. All that without having taken any risks or breaking a surfboard. This is the ultimate surfing experience!

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To continue to be honest with you, I don’t think I’ll be a “surfer” in our dystopian future. That last paragraph, and this picture, really killed it for me. I’m not good at fixing cars either so my run on Fury Road will be short. I’m a horrible aim so won’t be able to hunt people for sport…

…ummm. Shoot. Maybe I’ll be a bartender and make delicious Soylent Green cocktails?

That might be valuable.


Kelly Slater Teahupoo
Have you ever seen Kelly Slater, who turns 45 in February, so…loose? | Photo: Peter King

#TourNotes: Slater Releases Hounds!

Behind-the-scenes with Kelly Slater, final day, Tahiti Pro… 

As I’ve become fond of saying, is an event really over until Peter King has dropped his final #TourNotes?

Who can miss an episode? It’s disposable pop art that’s perfect for Generation Self; a yowling discharge of all those down days, all that… nothing but everything… that surrounds those two-week waiting periods at contests. It’s peculiar, it’s memorable, it’s a surface with slips but no adjustments.

In this episode, we’re on the boat with Kelly Slater on the final day of the Tahiti Pro. His girlfriend Kalani (hot! hot!) is there in her little Mikoh bikiniJohn John reveals a sense of humour normally reserved for close pals, Kelly does a very good impersonation of Hawaiian pidgin and we see Kolohe Andino, who says he wants Kelly Slater to win the event, rib the commentator Kaipo Guerrero for his one-time affair with the singer Madonna. 

It’s a subtler episode that most, subdued perhaps, because of the gloomy skies and the smallish, if good, waves, but it serves, as it always does, to remind us that the professional surfer is more human than the post-heat interviews reveal.

Watch!


Image taken from @wslwaveco Intagram!
Image taken from @wslwaveco Intagram!

Blood Feud: WSL vs. Wavegarden!

WSL CEO Paul Speaker loves to kick men when they are down! Apparently!

It is rude to kick a man when he is down, is it not? To really bury a boot into his already beaten ribs? To just haul off and punt as he bleeds into the ground, tears streaming down bruised cheeks? Gasping and wheezing?

I think rude but what do I know! I’m not the 16 x world champion! I’m not Kelly Slater!

Let’s study the above Instagram picture and ponder the rudeness of the question asked. Does anyone… anyone at all… think that Wavegarden’s offering is even in the same league as Kelly’s? Anyone? At all?

Anyone?

It is a rhetorical question, no? And one asked to inflict maximum damage. To maybe rupture kidneys. To break two ribs at once.

Oh but wait! Let’s look a little bit closer. That’s not Kelly Slater’s Creedler doing any kicking… that’s… that’s…

…that’s WSL CEO Paul Speaker’s Sanuk (he’s taken off his Roger Goodell Rockport Essentials with ergonomic back support to try and fit in)!

Yes, the Kelly Slater Wave Co. has apparently changed its name, or at least its Instagram handle, to the World Surf League Wave Co/@wslwaveco (remember WSL purchased!) and then went looking for a fight!

It had to go all the way to Wales, England to find a man already badly beaten, laying on the ground, struggling to breathe before taking a running start and…

…BOOM!

Will you teach your children to follow Paul Speaker’s example? To pick on those already abused? To wail away on opponents who cannot defend themselves?

Do you think Paul Speaker should run for President of the United States?