Julian v Kelly freesurfing in Portugal. Who wins?

Here’s a somewhat dated, though still compelling, hit from Julian Wilson’s YouTube channel that presents Julian and Kelly Slater freesurfing in Portugal in late 2019.

It’s interesting on two levels: Julian, thirty-one, and riding a trad sorta shape from the Gold Coast’s Jason Stevenson and Kelly Slater, then forty-seven, grilling his figs on his for-elite-surfers-only Slater Designs sled.

On a first viewing, Kelly makes the silk of his kimono ripple so sinuously as to suggest two women making love while Julian shakes his hips and mimics a femmie boy.

Winner, Kelly.

A second viewing and I appreciate the way Julian waves his hands back and forth as if he were icing a cake in the air.

Winner, Julian.

You?

Big-wave highlight reels should be the spear tip of the engagement funnel for surfing’s mainstream foray. The formula, blood-soaked as it is, works.

Did you watch the Nazaré comp?

No, me neither.

(Too busy chasing a resurgent east coast low ‘round the local beachies… was almost as fun as a wave pool.

But I did see it making front page news on all of the major Australian mastheads this morning.

The freakish incident involving Alex Bothelo, which you’ve no doubt seen in your Insta feeds, has the world’s attention.

His jetski backflipping off 10-foot of whitewash like a kid flicking a bottletop.

The Portugeuse surfer was resuscitated on the beach before being rushed to the emergency ward.

Scary scenes on the live feed.

Latest is that he’s awake and in a stable condition. It’s a sobering injury.

In Australia, broadsheet The Sydney Morning Herald ran it above the digital fold on its home page: Big wave surfer rushed to hospital.

There it was on the populist tabloid news.com.au, sandwiched between ‘Children watch heroin addict overdose’ and ‘Mum, 43, mistaken for teenage daughter’:

Horror as big wave surfer pummeled.

This, in the middle of coronavirus, cyclones, bushfires, political intrigue.

It’s the true nature of surfing’s image in Ma, Pa and Cousin Irvine’s eye.

We don’t matter until we’re falling sideways outta skyscrapers.

Or, as Albee Layer commented on the WSL’s posts, “Our lives are clickbait.”

The news reels want wipeouts, kickouts, carnage. Not BL dissecting the degrees of difference in split-screen top turns at three-foot Keramas.

What percentage of the audience watch speed racers just to see the spills?

The Nazaré comp is manufactured drama. Boom crash opera for a Trumpian world.

Not to diminish for one second the athleticism, bravery, grit etc of the surfers and safety crews involved. They’re lions and lionesses among women and men. The progression envelope of tow has well and truly been pushed, if that’s your thing.

But for the general public, it’s the equivalent of jumping a row of flaming school buses on a PeeWee 50.

Impressive, enthralling spectacle.

Are we not entertained?

E-Lo and his team face an ethical quandary.

The formula, blood-soaked as it is, works.

Big-wave highlight reels should be the spear tip of the engagement funnel for surfing’s mainstream foray.

So do they turn up the pace?

Double down on the drama, and watch the media clippings and advertisers $$ flood in?

Probably.

But, it’s worth asking the question.

Where’s the line drawn, if not today?

"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.