"If I could have spent my entire life just living broke and being a surf bum and every day paddle out and spend a few hours a day surfing, that’s as good a life as any life you could have," says Jerry Seinfeld.
On seventieth birthday Jerry Seinfeld reveals, “I follow every surfer on Instagram”
"Every day I stare at them like a cat looking at a bird through the window."
The co-creator of Seinfeld, Brooklyn-born Jerry Seinfeld, has revealed a lifelong fetish for surfing in an interview with People magazine, a celeb mag with sixty-mill readers.
Jerry Seinfeld, who turns seventy today, owned TV from the late nineties until, almost, the birth of the 21st century with his comedy Seinfeld, which ran from 1989 to 1998.
Seinfeld played a fictionalized version of himself, the straight man with a perpetual poker face to his three tightly wound pals, George, Elaine and Kramer.
“Every week you get your new ass, every fucking show…you meet some new chick and I know you fucking people,” Leon tells Jerry.
None of it – the cash, the gals, the houses, pretty cars – means anything, however, ‘cause Jerry Seinfeld never surfed and it eats the old New Yorker up.
Compare chasing waves to working a six-week season of twelve-to-sixteen hour shifts, real tough yards even if you’re pulling in thirteen gees for every line.
“I think if I could have spent my entire life just living broke and being a surf bum and every day paddle out and spend a few hours a day surfing, that’s as good a life as any life you could have,” he said.
Spin the table.
Would you give up your life in the ocean for a few hundred mill in the bank, a mirrored white-and-gold bedroom and a conga-line of radiant sex slaves with bush that bulges from their lil panties?
For those outside Oxnard’s feared Silver Strand, surf localism is mainly a thing of the past. Ubiquitous cellular cameras that double as telephones are everywhere, capturing “bad behavior.” Hordes of adult learners, who took up our pastime of kings during Covid, are just as happy to sue for damages as they are to drop in willy nilly. Maintaining lineup order, thus, a virtually extinct part time job.
Yes, it’s a different world but not long ago, death threats and mob-like warnings that “all fingers would be broken” were part of the norm. Enter Logan Murray. The famed New Zealand surf photographer responsible for putting Kiwian waves on the map has sat down with the team at 1 news and is sharing all, including being a wanted man and having to live like a sniper in order to snap the ocean.
Essential viewing though do you have opinions?
Are they well-formed?
Share either way.
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Kelly Slater (left) and longtime girlfriend Kalani Miler.
In stunning revelation, surf star Kelly Slater hopes unborn son will mirror his own radical ‘tude
"I'm generally pretty calm in stressful situations..."
The announcement that 11x world surfing champion Kelly Slater and his longtime Chinese girlfriend Kalani Miller delighted the wave-appreciating community like few before it. The best to ever do it shared that he and Miller were expecting, weeks ago, with a very cute photo shoot. While initial theory suggested the child would be a baby girl, it turned out that a son is, in fact, on the way.
Now while it is both rude and ill-mannered to speculate as to what the li’l fella might do with himself, it is also impossible.
Could he be gifted with the preternatural talent that has allowed his father to remain at the peak of professional surfing for forty years? Dominating very scary waves like Teahupo’o and Pipeline along the way?
Or might the apple fall far from the tree, the boy enjoying to stay indoors and read books about Faustian architecture instead?
Well, Slater, placing a tanned finger on the scales, appears to be actively campaigning for the former.
In a stunning revelation to Daily Mail, Slater openly declared:
We are really excited, little unnerving, little scary but that’s part of the excitement and anticipation that comes along with being a parent. I’m generally pretty calm in stressful situations. Kalani’s a lot more organised, more on it with everything she needs to get done. So I hope our child is that way. But it’s fun to like thrills and excitement too so maybe a little bit more of the physical life I like and balance of life she likes.
The balance of opposites, as they say.
RVCA-esque.
But what do you make of that? Natural hopes and dreams of a parent for child or an unnecessary bit of playing god?
Did you harbor secret wishes for your offspring?
Did they come true?
Share!
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There were hundreds if not thousands on the sand, in the bleachers, lining the rocks. Hugging the shorey. Out to waist depth in the waves. Brandishing beers and iPhones. They cheered every tube and turn like it was a football grand final. Andrew Shield/WSL
World champs exhibition heat at Snapper Rocks surf major “transcends competition”
For 40 minutes there was no other place in the surfing world you wanted to watch.
Back in the year 2000, my local Quey comp staged a massive coup. All of the then-living men’s world champions were assembled for a Surfest expression session, there on the coal-dusted shore of Newcastle’s main beach.
Twelve of them, from Pete Townened through to Occy, lined up in front of a crowd of thousands to surf a 40 min heat before the mens and womens finals.
Surfest is Newcastle’s long standing WQS comp. Under the dutiful stewardship of organiser Warren Smith it’s yo-yoed between regional and international levels over the past few decades, as well as a brief cameo as a CT event in the covid-disrupted 2021.
Up until sometime in the early 2000s it ran at Newy’s main beach, my alma mater, before moving over the hill to its current home at Merewether.
Newy beach is a natural coliseum, bordered by concrete and cliffs. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to get 10,000 people on the sand and the surrounding vantage points for finals days. Organiser Smith was an expert at the publicity stunt. In the years previous he had Slater and MR surfing together on MR twins. The year following he also roped in Toms Curren and Carrol. But the 2000 session was his masterpiece.
Lil’ baby surfads was on the sand that day at the turn of the millenium, clamouring up to get a view of surfing’s heroes. Slater, MR, the Toms, BL, Derek Ho etc etc.
(A funny side story: I had actually just been offered my first ever job working at the local fruit and veg shop. Unfortunately, day one coincided with the Surfest finals and world champ expression session. I called in sick, and my career in produce was over as quickly as it had begun).
The expression session was a bit of a fizzer in terms of the conditions. But the vibe in the crowd on the beach was electric. It’s still seared into this grom’s brain near 25 years later.
Watching the same format rolled out at the Snapper CS over the weekend brought back a heady dose of nostalgia for those glory days of pro surfing.
The WSL do a whole heap of dumb shit. But it’s also important to congratulate them when they get things right. We all want to see professional surfing succeed, if not in its current tennis tour format.
The latest champion’s heritage heat was magic bottled.
Did you watch it?
Slater, Occy, Parko, Mick and Steph were given forty minutes at the end of day one of competition at the Snapper Challenger Series event to put on a show.
The scene: silky four-foot Snapper, just past low on an incoming tide. World champ Bugs and Ronnie B in the booth. Stace Galbraith on the rocks. Marshalling the crowd who had gathered to view the show. Their collective enthusiasm equal to the action in the water.
Snapper was serving tubes behind the rock, followed by a 100m long canvas for the five masters to ply their trade. Slater loves to harp on about his pool being modelled on the Snapper to little Marley section. This was case in point. Life imitating art imitating life, or something.
It was nowhere near 10/10 Superbank. But it was more than enough to show us how sorely missed Snapper has been from the world tour and its endless stream of mediocre conditions.
The champs made easy work of it.
Mick was sizzling. Whip fast, despite this being one of his first surfs back from an MCL injury. So tight. Insane rotation through turns. Only slow motion or an expert eye could unlock the true genius of his surfing. Like Taylor Knox at double speed.
Kelly stuffed himself into a decent tube and the crowd erupted. “Old swivel hips,” said Ronnie as the goat emerged and S-turned down the line.
Occy burning Parko in another tube added further to the carnival-like atmosphere.
Steph stole the show on the sets of the day, hanging back on the foamball on one deep pit and belting her way down the Superlative Bank with power, grace, flare.
This heat was the best saved ‘til last. Across a field of 100 of the world’s brightest emerging talents, the most enjoyable surfing of the day was produced by a group of relative pensioners. Steph the youngest of the oldies at 36.
The champs delivered, yes. But for mine the Saturday afternoon crowd stole the show.
There were hundreds if not thousands on the sand, in the bleachers, lining the rocks. Hugging the shorey. Out to waist depth in the waves. Brandishing beers and iPhones. They cheered every tube and turn like it was a football grand final.
“It’s unlike anywhere else in the world how close you can get to the surfers here at Snapper,” said Stace Galbraith before turning his back on the camera to keep watching the action with the crowd. It had to be the shortest ever live cross. You couldn’t blame him.
The whole thing transcended competition. Everybody was part of the experience. From the surfers to the commentators to the spectators to the waves and the venue itself. Melded together like the hues of sea and sky out on the horizon.
It evoked that community aspect of surfing what we often forget. Recalled vision of the Burleigh Stubbies events of the ‘70s or my dusty Surfest throwback. Surfers, officials, coaches, families, friends, tourists, stoners, influencers, backpackers. Pimply 15 year olds skipping their first day at work to soak in the magic of it all and become acolytes for life.
For 40 minutes there was no other place in the surfing world you wanted to watch.
The WSL tries so hard to manufacture drama with cuts and final fives. All the while denying themselves the basic ingredients we keep preaching like an Orwellian slogan.
Get the world’s best surfers in the world’s best waves. Put nature’s beauty on show. Crowds are a bonus. The rest will take care of itself.
At one point Ronnie called it a celebration of surfing. WSL commentators are prone to hyperbole, but in this instance he hit the nail on the head.
