"Is that Kelly Slater?"
This morning, I was stopped in my tracks by a short film titled The Surfing Magician on Red Bull Television, produced by Inherent Bummer. But you are certainly aware of Santa Cruz’s Zoltan Torkos. The diminutive man burst upon the scene by becoming the world’s first to nail a kickflip on a surfboard. I was a budding surf journalist, then, and thought “cool” but was immediately told by the more mature in my field that it was not, in fact, cool but rather lame.
Time passed along and I thought about Torkos every now and again and how he’d been given real short shrift. He had put his mind to nailing that kickflip and had succeeded. His journey should have been turned into a wonderful children’s book like “The Little Engine That Could” but instead was relegated to the dump heap by mean men sneering.
Like Nick Carroll.
Well, the Inherent Bummer team does not bend like reeds in the wind to Nick Carroll’s nasty will, took that story out of the heap and stopped me in my tracks this morning. My young daughter was stopped in hers too, peered over my shoulder and asked “Is that Kelly Slater?”
“Kelly Slater wishes,” I responded.
Be moved here.
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Santa Cruz’r meets Honey Boy’ish magician. I love an underdog. Now a Zoltan fan.. Never was a fan of Travis’s writing here on BG. Have no problem giving credit when credit is due. I enjoyed that short!
Technically those are late kickflips but count it anyway. Skullet hahaha.
I reckon it’s cool, kickflips are hard (for rank amateurs like me) on a skateboard let alone on a surfboard. Yes it’s non functional, but he’s the first to master it.
Zoltan told me that when he tries kickflips, other people in the water try to tell him how to do them. And he’s like, ‘oh, ok.’
Could someone please explain that haircut?
Despite my punk roots, I feel that it should be illegal.
Zolton’s got those Santa Cruz eyes.
Meth-Vision.
Methy Davis?
I’m sure someone wrote a song about eyes like that.
Little known Nick Carroll fact. 3rd person to ever comment at BeachGrit.
The question is…is Nick the “mean men sneering”, or the one being relegated to the dump heap?
Who was 1 and 2?
1st Web developer
2nd Bitchy Crab
There are so many places to go with commenting on this. I don’t usually watch this kind of stuff but this time I did. As far as the kickflip is concerned, at this point it’s just a novelty trick that hasn’t developed to the point of being functional. It’s ugly and when not performed above the lip, just looks like a stupid luck maneuver. On the flip side, the same was said about airs a while back. Its difficult to see the kickflip developing the way airs did as too much luck is involved with a successful attempt.
Now, as far as Zoltan goes, he seems an interesting character. Certainly moves to the beat of his own drum and comes across as a bit disturbed in his head. But after watching that, he seems to get a massive amount of satisfaction out of this whole thing so more power to him for milking it dry.
Ha funny, like anyone that spends a huge chunk of their life chasing a watery mirage, (a wave here for a few seconds then gone), is playing with a full deck.
I agree, we are all a bit off but I meant that he seems to have some inner demons that this helps him with.
That surfing helps him with?
I think it was M. Warshaw who said–‘surfing’s past is filled with mis-fits, non-conformists and nut cases.’
Well said.
Join the club.
There is nothing that humans do which translates into anything ultimately meaningful, or fundamentally valuable to anyone or anything beyond our fleeting mayfly existence.
Ephemeral vanity. Folly. Farts to the wind , the lot of it.
Some of our concentrated efforts are even more useless than that.
Wrong–try sponsoring a kid in a 3rd world country for a year or longer or volunteering to feed the homeless.
Meaningful.
OK I’ll give you those in terms of sheer relief from immediate suffering. There’s probably a few others too.
In the face of tens of thousands of years of barbarism which continues to this day whether in Ukraine, Somalia, Myanmar, China, Brazil, or a hundred other countries around the world, perpetuated in the very halls of political power in the US Senate, or the Russian Duma, or in the foulest corrupt dens of Australian political influence; any small intervention like those you mention feel good to the individuals concerned, but do little to shift the fundamentals of structural inequality and moral bankruptcy.
This too shall pass.
Everything in life is fleeting. Clinging to it causes suffering .
Surfing is pure and un contaminated bliss
The closest thing to nirvana in life
Looks like Mikey Wright ten years down the line when his hairline catches up with Owens.