Surf fans (left) attempting to glean advantage over Pete Davidson.
Surf fans (left) attempting to glean advantage over Pete Davidson.

Surf fans bite fingernails to nubs as star quarterback Tom Brady sends clear shot over Kelly Slater’s bow in increasingly dramatic estrangement from wife Gisele Bündchen!

Crazy Dayz.

What a week it has been. Exactly seven days ago, news broke that Tom Brady and his wife Gisele Bündchen had each hired divorce lawyers. The exceptional quarterback, who currently plays for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Brazilian supermodel had seemed the picture of happiness and success over the course of their decade-plus marriage but oh what we each don’t know, don’t see behind the closed doors of lives.

Apparently the two had been having issues for some years and the whole business unraveled after a “big fight” at the beginning of this year’s NFL season.

Surf fans around the globe immediately turned attention toward the the world’s greatest surfer, Kelly Slater, and a possible, glorious reunion. Slater and Bündchen had famously dated during 2005 – 2006, two of eleven championship years for the Boy from Cocoa Beach, and candles were lit for a rekindling.

“Things” have been extremely volatile since.

Hearts were sent soaring when Bündchen saged her car then crashed when Leonardo DiCaprio and Josh Hartnett emerged as possible competition. Up again when the one-time Vickie’s Hush-Hush model appeared to alter a tattoo to look like Slater to say nothing about her turn to faith healing, but, now, plunging again as Brady has re-emerged, publicly, sending a clear shot over Slater’s bow.

On a podcast interview hours ago, the seven-time Super Bowl winner declared:

There’s things I’m going through in my 40s and it’s life. And you learn to grow up and you learn to deal with life. And that’s what we’re all trying to do. We’re trying to do it the best way we can. I think you realize that there’s a lot, especially in today’s day and age, with how fast things are happening in life for all of us, and the amount of responsibilities we have. You wake up every day trying to do the best you can do, understanding that life has its stresses. And to deal with them with a great support system and understanding and having some introspectiveness in your life where you can look at yourself and say, “Where do I need to commit my time and energy to? And how can I lessen some of the stress and lessen the burden on me so that I can be good for people around me.” So those are all different things that I work at.

To repeatedly refer to Slater as a “thing” seems very calculated, very… pointed. Certainly a shot over the bow but how will the sitting Pipeline Pro respond to the slight? In a battle of GOATs, where would you side? I mean, as a surf fan obviously with Slater but who do you think would, could actually re-win Bündchen’s love?

Tom Brady has millions of dollars and lived in Derek Jeter’s house.

Kelly Slater knows pretty much everything.

Fingernails to nubs.

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In moving tribute, World Surf League celebrates itself for celebrating indigenous peoples on day dedicated to them!

Touching too.

Yesterday marked Columbus Day, for some, Indigenous Day, for most, in these United States of America. A time to reflect on those who occupied these lands first, whose “new world” was across the sea in Europe. The World Surf League moved many by celebrating itself and its supporting of indigenous peoples on tour all year long in a powerful post that began:

Today, and every day, we honor and acknowledge Indigenous communities all over the world. This year, we have had the privilege to work with Indigenous communities across the globe. From California to Australia, Hawaii to Tahiti, we are committed to deepening these relationships globally and uplifting Indigenous voices. To learn more about how WSL is collaborating with Indigenous coastal stewards to shift culture read the article here.

The article pointed to everything the WSL did i.e. posting signs outside events acknowledging the original inhabitants and inviting tribal leaders to come to contests for blessings and other cultural performance for the viewing pleasure of professional surfers and sometimes professional surf fans.

Native plants were also planted by professional surfers but that may be a different component of goodwill that needs its own celebratory post.

Raise a sarsaparilla toward Santa Monica please.

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Slater (left) and Gabbard (further right).
Slater (left) and Gabbard (further right).

One-time Hawaii rep and noted surfer Tulsi Gabbard leaves party after fiery screed: “I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness!”

"So long, suckers."

American politics’ most famous surfer, after Richard Milhous Nixon, would certainly have to be Hawaii’s one-time Democratic representative Tulsi Gabbard. The congresswoman, who served the state in Washington D.C. from 2013 through 2021 and was notable for her Hindu faith, military service in Iraq and support of food trucks in Honolulu was, also, wonderful friends with Kelly Slater, recipient of The Inertia’s Global Advocate Award on top of being a passionate wave slider.

Though her political stance has shifted a bit since she left office, few expected the video screed she left, overnight, torching Democrats to the very bone on the way out the door.

Gabbard said:

I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms that are enshrined in our Constitution. I believe in a government that is of the people, by the people and for the people.

And:

Unfortunately, today’s Democratic Party does not. Instead, it stands for a government that is of, by and for the powerful elite. I’m calling on my fellow common sense, independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party.

Amongst other things.

The question now remains, will The Inertia abandon “cowardly wokeness” or continue to tread that rosy path?

More importantly, what does Kelly Slater think?

And Gisele Bündchen?

We already know Tom Brady’s opinion. Let’s go, Brandon etc.

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Palm Springs killjoys responsible for spiking Coral Mountain wave pool concept aim conservative moral outrage at region’s other proposed tanks!

"What could they be doing more conservatively?"

A handful of days ago, Southern California surfers woke up to the very bad news that Coral Mountain, a wave pool-centric project in tony Palm Springs, had been rejected by grouchy local killjoys. They showed up, en masse, to local city council meetings complaining about all the loud surf young ‘uns set to invade, them bringing their loud rock ‘n’ roll or hippity-hoppity music, bright lights and water wasting.

Coral Mountain was, thus, spiked but the grumps are not through and have now aimed their moral outrage at other neighboring surf tank plans including DSRT Surf and Thermal Beach Club.

Alena Callimanis, a core member of La Quinta Residents for Responsible Development, was thrilled at the group’s smashing of dreams, is frustrated that the aforementioned vowel-resistant DSRT Surf and Thermal Beach Club have already been approved by their city council’s, telling the Desert Sun, “It’s so much harder once a project has been approved to do anything, but if we can (let’s) move the needle to have these cities relook at their water calculations to look at — what could they be doing more conservatively?”

“More conservatively” an extremely slippery slope. What might the demands include?

Agreeing to only play Tony Bennett at low volume?

Refusing entry to certain people groups?

Mitch McConnell nights?

Dangerous.

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Nikki Van Dijk gives hell to the Best during one of the early sessions a few years back.

Surfer sues Australian wavepool after allegedly suffering “gruesome” neck injury at Tullamarine tank; blames design fault on Wavegarden tech, “I feel incredibly lucky that I’m not a paraplegic or quadriplegic after hitting the concrete so hard!”

Urbnsurf say he surfed in an advanced session “when he knew or ought to have known this was beyond his skill and capability”.

Always gonna happen, I suppose, someone hitting the concrete bottom of a tank and busting their neck.

I’ve been to Urbnsurf, Australia’s first commercial tank, down in Melbourne four times and on two separate occasions a decent sorta surfer has bounced off the bottom, headfirst. 

The first was Swellnet’s Stu Nettle on media day there three years ago, a gorgeous summer day where the temperature hit 110 degrees, and where the pool was loosed to the clowns for a dozen non-stop hours. 

Real early in the piece, Stu was sucked up the face of a lefthand tube and into the concrete bottom when a layback went awry.

As he wrote at the time,

“Before setting foot in the pool everyone signed a waiver about surfing being an inherently dangerous activity. It’s a formality of course. I expected as much. But it takes on significance when you realise the danger. 

“Yeah, the danger.

“Allow me to provide some perspective.

“The first time you hit bottom is a shock. It’s hard concrete and maybe thigh deep where the lip hits. Fall on take off and you’re trying to find a place to hide in knee deep water as the lip of the next wave pitches and the rider and board pass overhead.

“My session ended after two hours when the toe side rail caught during a layback and I went over leading with my head and shoulder, each making contact and hard. The lifeguards, who’d just stitched up another punter, were quickly onto me, sitting me down and assessing damage. They decided on glue and steristrips, and an enforced end to the session. Tail between my legs, I went poolside to dry off.”

On another all-dayer a pal head-butted the bottom after being sucked up the face of the righthander and ended the day in the hozzy.

But you take your lickings. You sign the waiver; you know the bottom ain’t sand; and if it barrels, it’s gotta be shallow. 

Capiche? 

Maybe.

Peter Nolan, a thirty-five-year-old surfer and carpenter from the beach town of Ocean Grove an hour-and-a-half out of Melbourne, has filed a writ saying he suffered fractures in his spine and at the base of his neck after being belted by the pool last December 30. 

Nolan says he was “picked up by a wave and thrown into the concrete surface of the pool” and has been off work ever since. 

Nolan claims Urbnsurf should’ve warned him about the dangers despite anyone who gets in the tank signing a waiver which details “the risk of harm associated with surfing … as an obvious risk.” 

He told the Herald-Sun, “I feel incredibly lucky that I’m not a paraplegic or quadriplegic after hitting the concrete so hard, especially since my surgeon told me that many people who experience something like I did end up in a wheelchair… The psychological impact has been tough, and I pretty much avoid surfing now out of fear of getting hurt.”

Urbnsurf, in their defence, say Nolan surfed in an advanced session “when he knew or ought to have known this was beyond his skill and capability”.

Bummer for Nolan, but not sure what else Urbnsurf could’ve done to y’know, make it a safe space and so on. 

The case goes to court in October, 2023.

If the suit succeeds the implications could be myriad, helmets, an end to Beast sessions etc.

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