Funny or cough.

What praise can be heaped upon Robert Kelly Slater that hasn’t already been said, written, sang? The world’s most historically decorated surfer, holding eleven championship tour trophies alongside numerous Pipeline Masters, one Pro Pipeline and at least one Eddie, is a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon the like our children’s children will be lucky to experience.

Aside from surfing talent, though, Slater is a master at sleight of hand, perpetually keeping fellow competitors, fans and followers, plus blocked followers, perpetually off balance. Who could forget when he accidentally stumbled into the Billabong House to act weird in front of Andy Irons before their Pipeline showdown. Accident? On purpose? The world will never know. Or when he introduced his must-see-to-believe wave pool technology minutes after Adriano de Souza won the 2015 professional surfing campaign thereby erasing the effort. Or when he quit Quiksilver, the company with which he had been inextricably tied, on April Fool’s Day thus having a laugh out the door.

Speaking of April Fool’s Day, it came and went hours ago. The Inertia made a funny about the WSL starting a midlength world tour. Get it? Slater took to Instagram to declare that he contracted Covid-19 at the just-wrapped Academy Awards where he presented an award (?) to the James Bond franchise alongside Tony Hawk and Shaun White.

Slater’s tango with Covid has been well-documented and, after the opening Hawaiian leg of the World Surf League’s Championship Tour all but admitted that he had been vaccinated against the disease.

If his positive result is, in fact, true how do you think it will affect his run at the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, set to kick off in around a week?

More importantly, who will bring him bone broth?

More as the story develops.

Owen fleeced for 815k, Tyler for 526k, Mikey for 140k.

One year ago, the bookkeeper Shane Maree Hatton was charged with 749 counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception totalling more than $1.5 million from Tyler Wright and brothers Owen and Mikey. 

Hatton, fifty-three, a family friend of the Wrights, although it was safe to assume that friendship had become somewhat strained, was a bookkeeper for the Wright’s plumbing biz.

When the kids started to rake in the sponsor cash, Hatton took on their finances, too.

World champ Tyler was celebrating her twenty-seventh birthday when she learned Strike Force Strathwallen, which was formed to investigate the case at the behest of Tyler’s manager Nick Fordham, had raided the svelte fashion-forward blonde.

In one of the greatest press releases ever issued, and which still delights one year later, police alleged Hatton spent $1.2 mill on gambling and poker machines “while the rest of it was wasted.”

The cop had tongue planted in cheek, of course, for it echoed perfectly the Irish soccer superhero George Best’s wonderful quote “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.”

Anyway, Hatton would slice a little off here and there, sometimes hitting four gees, disguising the transactions as “gardening” and “cleaning.” 

Owen was the first to notice the suspicious transactions. 

“I’m sorry, I’ve been gambling,” Hatton told Owen in May 2020. “I’ve f’ed up and it got out of control.”

Over the course of eight years, beginning in 2012, Owen was fleeced for $815,000 via 317 electronic transfers.

Hatton started ripping into Mikey and Tyler’s cash reserves in 2014, nailing Tyler for 526k, Mikey for 140k.

Last month, Hatton pleased guilty to four counts of obtaining advantage by financial deception and will face sentencing in the NSW District Court later this year.

Bookkeepers, accountants, whatever you want to call ‘em, are notorious for sticking their fingers in the honey pot, although their lifespans can be shortened considerably depending on the victims.

One man who ripped off Andy and Bruce Irons for a mill, as well as another thirty or so people for a total of fifty-mill, ended up at the bottom of a canyon after a mysterious car accident.

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Andy told me at the time.

"Makes it all worth it. Years of fake accounts just so I can follow my hero."

Where would we be without the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater? What would we do? Try to dream Kelly Slater up, is what, but it would be impossible. His melange of ludicrous skill, abject handsomeness, lack of aging, celebrity friends is just too much to believe to say nothing of his robust social media engagement.

There is no one with whom the 11x champion won’t chat. Other celebrities limit their correspondence to other celebrities creating a circle of dull but Slater is different. Slater will chat with me, with you, with those who believe the earth is flat, with the President of the United States, with your mailman.

Slater, though, doesn’t suffer fools or those with inappropriate or appropriate questions or etc. and so sometimes this chatting leads to a swift block.

Our very own Karl Von Fanningstad actually dug into the books and discovered that Slater is the all-time blocks leader.

Wow.

Well, for those have been “posterized” by the aforementioned world’s greatest surfer, there is now an association for you to join. A club of sorts. If you have been rejected by Kelly Slater then you are afforded the opportunity to purchase an exclusive t-shirt. The front is the image you see when searching for Slater’s profile. The back reads “The world’s greatest surfer blocked me on Instagram.”

Messages are already pouring in with one blockee declaring, “He even wrote a comment (before the block) back and told me to ‘mind my own business.’ Sound advice from the GOAT.” Another adding, “Makes it all worth it. Years of fake accounts just so I can follow my hero.”

Admission requires that you email proof of your blockage to [email protected]. Once verified, you will be emailed a link to Oregon’s greatest surf shop, pay the dues ($30 + shipping) then be sent your tee.

Imagine the joy you will feel seeing a fellow club member out on the streets. The sense of sisterhood.

Extremely anti-depressive.

The win comes on the 20th anniversary of Hamas' Passover Massacre when thirty Jews were murdered by a suicide bomber at Netanya's Park Hotel…

Maybe y’didn’t hear or read about the multiple jihadist attacks turning the streets of Israel red with blood over the past week:  eleven dead as jihadists used machine guns and knives to keep true to their long-held promise, to rid the world of the dirty Jew. 

As Hamas’ Fathi Hammad put it so delicately in 2019, “There are Jews everywhere. We must attack every Jew on planet Earth! We must slaughter and kill them, with Allah’s help. We will lacerate and tear them to pieces.”

The holiness of hatred etc. 

Anyway, after a two-year hiatus the World Surf League returned to Israel, the Netanya Pro finishing on Sunday with Moroccan-born Muslim Ramzi Boukhiam scooping up the win and eight thousand American dollars. 

The win was historic for a few reasons. 

First, Boukhiam flew to Israel…directly… from Casablanca on a Royal Air Maroc flight, the first from that country since relations were normalised a couple of years back.See, it ain’t the done thing for an Islamic country to allow the Jewish pig on his soil, even to fly over it, as evidenced by the zig-zagging an El Al flight gotta do to get anywhere. 

Second, when Boukhiam won the event a bunch of local Jewish kids swiped a Moroccan flag for the champ to hold on stage, along with his “Magen David” trophy, literally shield of David, or what we call the Star of David. 

Hitler and his Nazis made Jews wear the six-pointed star so they could be easily be identified, rounded-up, slaughtered. Hence, it’s since become a symbol of heroism, strength and solidarity.

Third, when Boukhiam was being chaired up the beach, the DJ threw on Arabic music. Flip the scenario and y’can’t exactly imagine a Jewish surfer being carted up the sand to the sound of Hava Nagila in Indonesia. 

“A Muslim Arab being carried to the sound of Arabic music on Israeli soil, it was the most positive vibe ever,” says Surfing 4 Peace’s Arthur Rashkoven. “I was fucking hooting and screaming. It was truly special.” 

The win came on the twentieth anniversary of Hamas’ Passover Massacre when thirty Jews were murdered by a suicide bomber at Netanya’s Park Hotel just up the road from where the contest was held.

Rashkoven, who lives by Doc Paskowitz’s maxim that “people who surf together can live together” says, “I was in tears when he was waving his Moroccan flag. It was unbelievable. For a moment time stood still for me. I shed a lot of tears on the podium.” 

Boukhiam was gone by the time the jihadists started to run wild and now Rashkoven is waiting, fearfully, for what happens next. 

“It’s ISIS-style terror. The authorities don’t know how to deal with it. It caught us by complete surprise. It’s never easy.”

Rashkoven is talking to me from outside his kids’ school. I tell him it must be wild leaving his kids alone when he knows there are men and women out there who’d be celebrated if they were to murder his children. 

“It’s hard, we never feel safe. People don’t know whether to go out. And what is the government going to do? Are we going full throttle against it? Escalate into another war? Such a delicate situation, really hard to understand what is going to happen.” 

In New York City, there are calls to “globalise the intifada”.

Today, after a week of terror attacks in Israel, New Yorkers marched chanting to “globalize the intifada.” This is a call for a genocide against Jews everywhere. They can’t condemn the terrorism in Israel because they condone it. Make no mistake, they are antisemites. pic.twitter.com/K4yKsG2BDe

— Taylor Levy (@taylor_levy) March 31, 2022

 

Meanwhile, in Gaza, West Bank etc, delicious candies are handed out in the streets to celebrate the murders. 

Do you see the celebrations and passing out candies? It is in the Palestinian Authority and Gaza. They’re celebrating a terrorist attack, the murder of Israelis — both Jews and Arabs. They’re celebrating spilled Israeli blood, of innocent victims, of shattered families. pic.twitter.com/VEiqT6LF0B

— יוסף חדאד – Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) March 30, 2022