"I didn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve. And I don’t want that to happen to anyone else."

If you’ve been around these pages long enough you’ll know the story of Andy King, a hard-charging goofyfooter from Cronulla, Australia, who hit his head in a fight outside a nightclub in 2004 and lost his hearing, his balance, his pro surfing career.

The fight was usual theatre for Cronulla late on a Saturday night. A gang of footy players mouthed off to Andy’s chick from across the road; he “glazed over”, ran across the bitumen and confronted all eight of ’em.

“Ended up getting the shit kicked out of me,” he says in Make or Break.

Next thing, his head is smashed on the concrete gutter.

I went to see Andy at the hospital shortly after the fight and he was surprisingly bright given the catastrophic change to his life. Andy’s resilience was legend. He’d never had it easy. When he was a kid Andy slept with a knife under his pillow to protect himself from a violent alcoholic Dad.

Fast forward fifteen years and Andy is intro’d to Medina by Mick Fanning at a time when Medina’s life is going through rapid change, the estrangement of his family, a new wife and so on. 

Medina’s shaper Johnny Cabianca said King’s arrival stilled Medina’s emotional state, elevated his performance.

And, now, Andy, now forty-five, is the unlikely star of Apple TV’s Make or Break series, stealing the show in episode two, Brazilian Storm.

“Kingy is extremely loyal, extremely passionate, he’s not going to back down,” Mick Fanning says.

We see Gabriel and Andy, in Cronulla, preparing for their first surf together.

In a moving scene, Andy tells Gabriel, “I’m going to take my cochlear off. I’m deaf.”

Andy smiles, “Just use sign language”, mimicking the universal sign for barrels.

In his to-camera interviews on Brazilian Storm, Andy forces back tears, then weeps openly, turns away from the screen.

“As you can see, I’m part robotic,” he says. “I’m half-machine. I’ve got two cochlears.”

The season ends with Andy and Gabriel, along with Gabriel’s now ex-wife Yasmin who says prophetically “Some people think that I’m just going to end his career and that he’s going to be unfocused”, celebrating Gabriel’s third world title.

“I didn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve,” Andy says, “And I don’t want that to happen to anyone. I want to make sure they’re completely content and that they can take what they’ve got out of their surfing and bring it to their own life.”

Watch here (Apple TV subscribers only. If y’tight with cash, and who can blame ya, grab a one-week free trial.) 

Kingly.

We all know that the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater is not a poor man. With a beachfront Hawaiian home, vigorously protected with illegal burritos, and a jet-fuel spewing on-the-go lifestyle, it is assumed that the 11x champion is “well-off.”

How well-off?

In an astounding piece detailing Slater’s long career, various business ventures, music and television career, turn as an author, Money Inc. reports:

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Kelly Slater’s net worth is $35 million. He has made his money from surfing competitions, and he has also made money from sponsorship deals and various other ventures. His business interests include apparel, surfwear, surfboards, beverages, and indoor wave pools.

$35 million, oooooeee! That’s enough to save a nice chunk of the rainforest, if one cares about that sort of thing. But where will this vast fortune go when the curtains finally close? Well, Money Inc. also reports:

Kelly Slater has been in a relationship with Kalani Miller for more than 15 years. They are not yet married, but plan to wed in the future, says The Net Line. Kelly and Miller have no children together, but Kelly has a daughter, Taylor, from a previous relationship who was born in 1996. Although he maintains a home in his birthplace, Cocoa Beach in Florida, Kelly Slater now has homes in Hawaii and Los Angeles.

$35 million, whoa!

If you had that sort of filthy lucre, what would you do?

Help Kelly live his best life as he is wont to make poor aesthetic choices.

Illegal burrito.

Fall in love for the first time.

Make or Break, the television series that has all of endemic surf media swooning in porticos, fanning blushing faces, reaches its apex in episode three and who would have ever seen that coming? Who could have? Tyler Wright holds down the season opener, of course, followed by Gabriel Medina and his Brazilian Storm which leads us to “The Rookies,” namely Morgan Ciblic and Matthew McGillivray.

Now, in my normal World Surf League watching life, I am actively indifferent to both Ciblic and McGillivray. They are cannon fodder wasting time, swell, attention and their impeding cut passively welcomed.

But I will tell you what, following both of their World Surf League journeys, via Make or Break is more compelling than Wright’s illness, Medina’s torpor. Both have personalities, hopes, dreams which spark under the star-turning eye of Jay “Bottle” Thompson.

I was also indifferent to Thompson during his run on tour, though not as actively, but my goodness gracious. He glows on camera, glows guiding his charges through silly beach drills, glows talking, to camera, about his nickname, about this surfing life.

Leaving the episode with a place carved out in my heart for Ciblic, McGillivray, Thompson made me wonder how many surfers professional surfing, especially in its latest iteration of World Surf League, has made me needlessly dislike? And is it on purpose? Has the slow arc toward the mid-season money saving cut demanded our indifference which has, therefore, been coddled and encouraged all along?

Secret smiles spreading in Santa Monica every time we denigrate Liam O’Brien?

Every Nat Young smear?

I’m telling you, if you watch one episode make it three and you will grow frustrated with what we’ve been missing all along.

Live like Bottle.

Mick Fanning, Tyler Wright, Gabriel Medina, Morgan Ciblic et voila!

You, most likely, are thankfully too young to remember the evil payola days of old. I’m too young too but once thought about watching the film American Hot Wax which focuses on the end of an era when record labels would pay radio stations to spin their artists, regardless of talent, in order to juice sales.

The practice was made illegal in the early 1960s, without disclosure of aforementioned monetary exchange, as everyone’s tastes must have gone to absolute shit.

Dangerous the sort of nonsense a morally bankrupt corporation masquerading as arbiter of art will ram down an entertainment-starved public’s throat.

Cue Rip Curl.

The universally praised television program Make or Break, which began broadcasting just days ago with all of endemic surf media falling down to rightly worship, has featured Torquay’s favorite surf brand almost exclusively over the first three episodes.

Mick Fanning.

Tyler Wright.

Gabriel Medina.

Morgan Ciblic.

Matt McGillivray.

Rip Curl Narabeen Classic.

Each wonderfully inspiring but maybe inspiring with some voodoo financial magic playing out behind the scenes?

Oh I accuse Rip Curl of absolutely nothing. I love the brand more than ever. But do love because I’m sheeple and easily voodoo’d?

Neil Ridgway (RIP*) I turn my dumb eyes to you.

*RIP meaning forcibly Retired in Peace.