One would be inclined to believe that no matter where
Kelly Slater goes, he has a pretty good time. Two hours
ago at the Tahiti Pro, Slater, who is 44 years old and rated
19th in the world, conjured two tens in a round five heat against
the Hawaiian Keanu Asing.
“The first 10 of that heat was a more difficult ride definitely,
but the second one was a bigger, more perfect, classic tube,” said
Slater. “I just thought that the first one was a lot more
difficult, so I was not sure if they would throw a 10 on the second
one. Had I got the second one in any other heat I thought that they
would probably give me a 10. I have been feeling good all week. My
first heat was a little slow and I had to grind out that first win
against Michel [Bourez]. That is just how close the Championship
Tour is nowadays. Had Keanu [Asing] gotten that wave, I would have
lost. That heat was really close. A perfect heat is not going to
happen many times in your life so I am stoked.”
Watch here!
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Wilkinson eyes the yellow jersey as John John steals it
from his back...
The boy from Copacabana made us believe before
crashing to earth and joining his ilk. But oh how we smiled along
the way!
And it was a very fun run, was it not? Matt
“Wilko” Wilkinson, the boy with stringy brown hair and amusing
wetsuits. The boy with a crooked tooth’d easy smile. The boy who
cracked under pressure in Trump-like fashion and suggested one of
his detractors, the esteemed Fred Pawle, “deserved a flogging” for
calling him a yobbo. Or maybe it was because Mr. Pawle also said
that Wilkinson “isn’t pretty.”
But he isn’t and that is his joy! He is not cut from granite or
from a hunk of Krypton like our dear Kelly Slater. He is cobbled
together with mud and clay and little bits of discarded straw like
the rest of us.
Having him sit atop the Jeep Leaderboard (look Joe Turpel! Your
dull hammer is working! Jeep Jeep Jeep leaderboard!) for all these
many months and through all these many events has been… well, it
has been an inspiration.
And now a rightful champion, Medina or John John, will go and
wrest the yellow jersey from Wilko’s imperfect hand but what will
he do?
Will he cling to his precious like a Gollum, crouched in a
corner, baring his teeth to all who come near? Will he relinquish
easily and breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that he can go back to
being a light-hearted clown prince once again?
Will he realize that being a clown prince is not his stock
anymore and emerge from his yobbo cocoon to strike a blow for the
rest of us?
Can Matt Wilkinson win it all at the end?
For us?
(no, but fun to think anyhow!)
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We're all believers of magic and nothing thrills more
than watching surfing's great Houdini, Kelly Slater, squeezing a
perfect ten out of a three-foot insider. | Photo: WSL
Kelly swipes perfect ten, loses heat. Kolohe roars
alive!
After a fruitless comb of the Teahupoo ghetto this
morning, you might’ve recoiled at its…slow…slow…slow. At
its enforced idleness. A crummy swell forecast. Now or never.
Were you of the opinion that the umbrella organisation that owns
professional surfing had finally announced its failure?
Chas Smith did, for an hour or so. Read
here. At least until a crew of Mormons appeared
and made good the world. Read here.
I’m of the belief that surfers, at least those surfers
interested in professional surfing for more than the bang and pop
and ostentatiousness of big Pipe or Teahupoo, find an exuberance in
the chess-like machinations of these sorts of small days. We
appreciate the surfers who can fortune tell a west bowl before it
breaks. The surfers who’ll swing onto the inside and into smaller,
more perfect waves that cling to the reef.
I’m also of the belief that a good event runs on momentum. I’ve
lost count of the times I’ve forgotten a contest was still running
’cause of lay-days, half-days and endless standbys to deal with
wavering tides. A contest run over four consecutive days in
occasionally good waves will always steal the show from a
stuttering, two-week marathon.
Today was a cache of gold nuggets.
Did you see Kolohe’s almost-ten pulled from under Jordy’s
gaping, stunned nostrils? Two minutes to go? Needs a banger?
Woof! Watch it here.
Did the Slater-Santos (and Buchan) heat peel you off your
chair?
Kelly Slater scores a beautiful ten, a surprising ten, scooped
off the inside by virtue of his foamball jockeying, and then
wildcard Bruno Santos throws Kelly into round five
with pair of nines.
The contest wraps tomorrow with round five, the quarters, semis
and the final. A six-thirts am start. Who you gonna pick?
Let’s all keep believing in miracles, ok? If
you can even imagine… if your crusty heart can wrap around
things too majestic for the mind to fully comprehend… then you know
that the World Surf League, pronounced dead just hours ago, is
alive again and thanks to the Angel Moroni!
Mitt Romney was right! Mitt Romney for President!
So…the WSL
was dead, yeah? But then Joel gave us a thrill and
what? And how? But if you look at the channel, at the boats, the
answer is there.
Three Mormons, in full regalia, bob and pray and bob and adjust
their holy undergarments and bob and think about sweet Salt Lake
girls who they wanna make lotta babies with and bob and supplicate
for us sinners!
Us demanders of entertainment!
Us bastards!
And then the World Surf League rises, brushes off the dirt,
coughs, and… and… and… lives!
Joel Parkinson, who I characterized as “less successful” in
World Surf League’s obituary, was the catalyst for sweet redemption
and thus it was written in 1 Nephi 1:20:
But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender
mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because
of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of
deliverance.
I was wrong, so wrong, and Joseph Smith is scolding me atop a
pile of virgins in heaven.
Wait. Do Mormons have virgins in heaven? What do they get
again? I can’t remember.
The World Surf League died today during Round 3
Heat 3. It might be missed.
On Monday, one-time boy-band impresario and
lifelong con-man World Surf League died at the age of 45 of
absolute boredom in the Round 3 Heat 3 matchup between Matt Banting
and Jordy Smith in the Tahiti Billabong Pro. Those who knew
it best were pretty much satisfied with that ending.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, World Surf League
(then called Association of Surfing Professionals) was
celebrated, admired and even adored, an affable King Midas of
surf with a magnetic personality. It was a walking
exercise in irony: The middle-aged, nasal-voiced, balding and
300-plus-pound Queens, New York, native surrounded itself with
chiseled, underage surfers.
It didn’t invent surfing, but the ones it formed
dominated brands, shattered boardshort records and helped
propel the industry toward a multi-billion dollar
run, the largest ever at the time. WSL/ASP started Kelly
Slater and Andy Irons but followed its two biggest acts
with a long tail of less-successful others: O-Town, LFO, Joel
Parkinson, Take 5, Mick Fanning, Natural, Aaron Carter, Ace Buchan,
Adriano de Souza, Matt Wilkinson, Italo Ferreira, Sebastian Zietz,
Kolohe Andino, Wiggolly Dantas, Dusty Payne, Nat Young, Stuart
Kennedy, Adam Melling, Alejo Muniz, Ryan Callinan, Bede Durbidge,
Timothee Biso.
Etc. etc. etc.
Many who did business with WSL, though, remember it as a
financial criminal. In 2008, it was convicted of two counts of
conspiracy, one count of money laundering and one count of making
false statements during a bankruptcy proceeding. It was
sentenced to 300 months in prison, one for every million
investigators said it stole in a massive Ponzi scheme
involving fake savings accounts and a fake professional surf
tour business.
If the league once known as “Big Poppa” to its beloved
boys had his way, the story of its legacy would begin and end
with its surf success and influence. But its later life
was dominated by desperation to prove it was worthy of the credit
it gave itself.
It all came undone during Round 3 Heat 3 when Matt Banting and
Jordy Smith did not surf leaving Martin Potter and Joe Turpel to
blabber about nothing for 35 full minutes.
It might be missed but not for many many many years.
