"Like a liquid fever dream. She's in denim
cut-offs, of course. The left leg comes out first, emerges like a
butterfly wing from a chrysalis. Then the left boob emerges, barely
contained by a flimsy crop top."
Happy Birthday Kelly Slater.
Here he is, about to line up again for another go round, our
GOAT, the GOAT of GOATS. Forty eight years old, Happy Birthday
Robert Kelly Slater.
We know you are a bit tender around the tummy when it comes to
criticism, and we know you’re reading so let me take the
opportunity to speak on behalf of the room and say from the bottom
of our dark hearts: don’t go.
Please don’t go.
A glance around the sporting firmament at ageing athletes gives
grounds for cautious optimism.
Forty-eight-year-old Julius Boros won a PGA Championship in
1968. Seventy-three-year-old Israeli goalkeeper Isaak Hayik is
still playing full games with Ironi Or Yehuda.
Hershel McGriff competed in the K and N West race at Tucson
speedway in 2018 at the age of ninety. Ida Keeling completed the
one-hundred-metre race at the age of one hundred in 2016.
Based on these facts, the best case scenario is Kelly Slater
isn’t even halfway through his career.
In May last year at an open Q and A session during a showing of
the Momentum
Generation Kelly said, “Part of the challenge of
getting better as you get older is believing your best days,
including physically, are still ahead of you.”
Get Cloudbreak back on the schedule, and Trestles and solidify
an Indo leg and a sixty-year-old Slater is still not a back marker
in the thirty-four
There’s still unknowns unknowns for us to ponder.
Kelly’s next appearance is pegged for the first event of the QS
Challenger series at Piha in March. How Kelly fares at a
rambunctious black sand beachbreak in New Zealand is a total
mystery bag.
The only certainty is I’ll be watching, and so will you.
It’s customary when pals gather around to celebrate a loved ones
birthday to share stories about the birthday boy.
Kelly, before I share my favourite story about you, could you
please make sure your significant other or mother, or mother-in-law
is not reading over your shoulder.
Cheers.
It concerns one of your famous girlfriends.
Early nineties in the Pipe carpark opposite Sunset Elementary
school. A rusted out two-door Honda Civic pulls in. Out pops a very
follicularly fulsome Kelly.
In the front seat, a skinny, rockered Merrick, I think with the
stork sharpied out on the bottom.
You know the one?
Kelly leans into the back seat and pulls forwards the drivers
seat. Slowly and somehow communicating a very clear sense of
disgruntlement Pam Anderson emerges from the back seat.
Kelly Slater has stuffed the most famous babe of the nineties
into the backseat of a rusted-out Japanese shitbox.
Is Kalani out of the room?
Good.
How does Pam Anderson get out of the backseat of a Honda
Civic?
Like a liquid fever dream. She’s in denim cut-offs, of course.
The left leg comes out first, emerges like a butterfly wing from a
chrysalis. Then the left boob emerges, barely contained by a flimsy
crop top.
I recall an audible intake of air, I think my ears popped from
the sudden pressure drop, but that could be imagination playing
tricks on memory. Then the right leg, the right boob and she was
clear of the rust bucket.
A little shake and shimmy and there she was.
What did Kelly do?
Took the Merrick out and surfed Pipe.
Was Pam impressed? Apparently not.
Within weeks she was back with Tommy.
How amazing that when we consider the life and times of RK
Slater-Pam Anderson is a B-character.
Equally amazing to me is that with a once-in-a-lifetime
superstar like Slater at their disposal pro surfing still couldn’t
crack the market as a mainstream sport.
I think an appropriate remedy would be for Kelly Slater’s
Birthday henceforwards to become an international public
Holiday.
A day that could truly unite all of humanity would be an
appropriate gesture of thanks to Kelly Slater for all he has given
us, and continues to give us.
Happy Birthday Kelly.