Professional surfers jumping back and forth
from Challenger née Qualifying Series to Championship Tour support
Albert Einstein theory of insanity!
By Chas Smith
Change is good.
You have certainly heard the quote,
misattributed to the great thinker Albert Einstein, that the
definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results.” In truth, there is no record of
Einstein ever uttering such a thing, the earliest reference likely
being recorded in a 1981 Knoxville, Tennessee newspaper describing
a meeting of a local Al-Anon, the organization that helps families
of alcoholics.
It is, nevertheless, a nice quote and I was thinking about it,
today, while chatting with David Lee Scales during our weekly get
together.
I had watched very much of the just-wrapped Boost Mobile Gold
Coast Pro. Too much, perhaps, and was left with the impression that
those who filter in and out of the Challenger née Qualifying Series
to the Championship Tour are insane. That is, they surf the same
exact way but expect different results.
It’s exactly good enough to get out of the second tier, exactly
bad enough to drop them right back in.
Why don’t any radically experiment with technique, board choice,
strategy? The great Kelly Slater, love him or adore him, has never
been afraid to throw absolutely wacky design into the mix.
Sometimes it serves him, other times it does not but it certainly
keeps things interesting.
No?
But wouldn’t you be refreshed by an angry Leonardo Fioravanti
back-paddling everyone and causing water fights or an airborne
Sally Fitzgibbons committed to launching whenever and wherever
possible?
Change is good.
Yes?
Listen here.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Cape Hatteras beachfront homes fall into
sea at prime surfing location as shifting environmental landscape
continues haunting the rich and famous!
By Chas Smith
Calling all illegal burritos.
The same exact problem facing the noted
environmentalist, and 11x world champion, Kelly Slater and
his beachfront Oahu neighbors is also foiling likeminded wealthy
friends from Miami all the way up to Cape Hatteras, North
Carolina’s premier surfing destination.
Namely, the ocean creeping up and up and up, flooding
multi-million dollar properties, eroding front yards, destabilizing
foundations.
Slater, of course, solved his immediate trouble through the
usage of illegal burritos but apparently his wealthy friends in
Cape Hatteras did not receive the memo as, days ago, their houses
plunged into the sea.
Two beach houses have fallen into the waves along North
Carolina’s coast, U.S. National Park Service officials said in a
statement Tuesday.
The unoccupied homes were located along Ocean Drive in the
Outer Banks community of Rodanthe. The park service confirmed both
collapses Tuesday and has closed off the areas around the
houses.
Debris from the first fallen house was spreading widely.
Officials from the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which is part
of the park service, said they will be working closely with the
homeowner to coordinate cleanup activities.
This is the third time a home has fallen into the surf this
year. A house in Rodanthe collapsed in February and spread debris
across many miles of beaches before the homeowner and volunteers
were able to clean most of it up. However, clean up efforts for
smaller pieces of debris continues.
“Unfortunately, there may be more houses that collapse onto
Seashore beaches in the near future,” David Hallac, superintendent
of National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, said in a statement.
“We proactively reached out to homeowners along Ocean Drive in
Rodanthe after the first house collapse and recommended that
actions be taken to prevent collapse and impacts to Cape Hatteras
National Seashore.”
Drat.
But might these destroyed homes make for bountiful new
reefs?
One man’s trash another’s treasure?
Or should Kelly Slater teach the ways of illegal burrito to east
coaster southerners who are more accustomed to illegal grits?
OuterKnown.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Living legend Kelly Slater receives much
needed lift as august Hollywood Reporter endorses lightly worn
OuterKnown: “Zac Efron and Jason Statham are among the Hollywood
stars who have worn pro surfer Kelly Slater’s brand!”
By Chas Smith
It IS Ok!
Our Kelly Slater is, without any shade or
shadow of doubt, a living legend. His accomplishments, in the surf,
far too vast to be able to list here. Eleven-time world champion,
Pipeline Master and Pro Pipeline, Eddie winner, ageless wonder and,
at time of writing, current world number thirteen.
His exploits out of the water, though, are decidedly mixed.
On one hand, he dated Pamela Anderson.
On the other, Purps.
And it really is his various business exploits that have me
worried most. For every Surf Ranch there is an Endorfins, quickly
touted then disappeared without success or further mention. But,
so, where does his sustainable clothing brand OuterKnown land on
the K-Brand spectrum?
I have never, not once, seen it in the wild. No fathers of
middle-school children at the coffee bar, no fathers of high-school
children on the way to “casual Friday” and so I worry much but, as
it turns out, needlessly.
The Hollywood Reporter, an august publication detailing
lifestyles of the rich and famous, just released its list of the
“best sustainable men’s
brands 2022” and Slater’s OuterKnown fell right in
behind Patagonia.
Founded by pro surfer Kelly Slater, Outerknown ensures that
its products are entirely organic, recycled or regenerated — which
is among the reasons why wave riders and everyday wearers
(including stars like Zac Efron and Jason Statham) are drawn to the
comfy, carefree brand. The company champions fair labor practices,
aims to be fully circular by 2030 and shares its full supplier list
online. The blanket shirt and S.E.A. Jeans are among the
seven-year-old label’s best-selling pieces, and Outerknown also
sells pre-loved clothing, too.
Zac Efron and Jason Statham?
Pamela Anderson 2.0 and whew.
Healthy.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Mammy of Gabriel Medina goes nuclear in
interview concerning son’s short-lived marriage to Sports
Illustrated model Yasmin Brunet; says Gabriel “started to go weird”
and “I knew it wouldn’t last. It wasn’t love!”
By Derek Rielly
"Gabriel is intense in everything. He is intense to
fall in love, intense in everything, and passion ends."
Three-time world champ Gabriel Medina’s mammy Simone has
chosen the nuclear option during an interview for Brazilian TV;
her interlocutor, I must add, is a strikingly unique beauty with an
absolutely fantastically curvaceous body, skin a rich, ripe,
radiant apricot, waist-length hair ashimmer beneath the lights.
Little Gabriel, who is twenty-eight and who makes his return to
competition at the Grajagan Pro in two weeks, quit the tour just
before the opening event at Pipe citing his fragile mental
health.
“I have emotional issues that I need to deal with,” he
wrote.
It soon emerged he’d busted up with his thirty-three-year-old
Sports Illustrated model wife Yasmin Brunet and she was, allegedly,
refusing to leave his beachfront house in Sao Paulo, putting towels
over the security cameras so no one could see what she was
doing.
Before that, there was the estrangement of his mama, Simone, and
step-dad, Charlie, which included a messy split of assets and a
wild feud between his then-wife and his mama over the existence of
a supposed sex tape starring Brunet.
Now, in the interview with Domingo Espetacular, Simone has
revealed she has not spoken to her son for two years and that his
relationship with Brunet was only slowly revealed.
“She never left (Gabriel’s house). I just saw there was a car
with a driver that brought the clothes, brought a little each week.
At first, we received her very well but over time I felt that
Gabriel started to get weird.”
Simone says she was bummed she wasn’t told about the couple’s
North Shore wedding, “Even if you wanted an intimate ceremony, out
of respect you could just tell us” and says that she found out
about the break-up via social media, adding her chilling coup de
grâce.
“I knew it wouldn’t last. I said it to myself… I know him.
Gabriel is intense in everything. He is intense to fall in love,
intense in everything, and passion ends. It wasn’t
love.”
But, does it?
I would think structural issues, pathological jealousies for
instance, more than a dimming passion would ice a year-long
marriage.
Or maybe he, or she, woke up one morn, listened to the same
dribbling bullshit coming out of a hole on their spouse’s smirking
kewpie doll’s face, and went, big mistake, I’m out.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Big-wave world champ and LGBTQ+ icon Keala
Kennelly reveals her “self-hatred for being gay” and how playing
straight on the world surf tour nearly killed her, “I spent the
majority of my time on the pro circuit in the closet completely
terrified to come out!”
By Derek Rielly
“I actually quit the tour shortly after I came out
because I couldn't handle mentally and emotionally what that was
like."
A few years ago, I got pitchforked by social media mobs
for questioning the validity of one-event world titles, with
reference to Keala Kennelly’s big-wave crown, particularly
since she didn’t make a wave in the final and there were only ten
other competitors in the event.
I did forget what year I’m in and that any sort of critique is
hate and so on, particularly if the person is female or gay.
To question someone who is both, even if the issue has nothing
to do with gender or sexing, is suicidal.
It was enough to trigger some sort of sad feeling, if I was open
to these sorts of things.
“I had just all this internalized homophobia and self-hatred for
being gay,” Kennelly says. “I was living this double life because
on tour, I was pretending to be straight. I’m just a really honest
person, I’m a really genuine, authentic person. So, to feel like I
was living this lie was just crushing my soul and after so many
years of that, it was just, “I can’t do this anymore, this is
actually going to kill me if I can’t live my truth.” It got to a
point where I didn’t care what the cost was, I couldn’t live like
this.”
Kennelly says that it was “not okay to be a lesbian” and that if
you did prefer shaved babylike snatches to rock-and-cock Tom
Selleck lookalikes it was “career suicide.”
“So when I got on the tour, I was so freaking nervous because I
inherently knew I was gay. So, I was absolutely terrified and I
spent the majority of my time on the pro circuit in the closet and
just completely terrified to come out — completely terrified to get
outed, that I was going to lose my sponsors.”
In 2005, when Kennelly, aged twenty-seven, eventually came
out she “faced a wave of homophobia from companies and other
surfers that eventually led her to leave the sport.”
“I actually quit the tour shortly after I came out because I
couldn’t handle mentally and emotionally what that was like. Then I
had a few sponsors drop me and so, that was just more confirmation
that it wasn’t okay. I left the tour because, emotionally and
mentally, I just couldn’t handle it.”
Times change, of course, and Kennelly notes the world champ
Tyler Wright wears a contest jersey with a gay flag.
“It makes me really happy that athletes are not having a
struggle as I did,” says Kennelly. ” She came out and her sponsor
didn’t drop her, they’re still supporting her. So, it’s really nice
to see that attitude change.”
Incredibly, in the forty-six years since the men’s tour has been
around, not one active male pro has admitted to being a barebacking
queen.