“This could be Kelly Slater's Michael Jackson-baby-dangle-off-the-balcony moment.”
Hot on the news that Kelly Slater has been gifted a lifeline to a twelfth world title, is footage of the champ apparently giving an infant the gift of barrel-riding.
Kelly Slater, who is fifty-two, is filmed wearing a harness called a BabyBjörn, a type of baby carrier designed to carry infants and young children.
(As readers of this site who are parents will attest, the BabyBjörn harness is indispensable as it allows parents to carry their babies in various positions, including facing inward, facing outward, and on their back, as they grow. I have so many fond memories of babies asleep on my chest as I strolled the beaches examining the state of sandbanks and the tides.)
And, in the case of Kelly Slater, whose second child is due, well, the exact date hasn’t been publicly disclosed, however, the announcement was made in March 2024, so, considering the average human gestation period, it’s likely that the baby is due sometime in the summer of 2024, the device is used to carry a baby while he surfs.
In the short reel hosted on Red Bull producer Johnny Decesare’s Instagram account, Kelly Slater coolly takes the child on a first-hand tour of his famous made-made wave, Surf Ranch, riding the barrel and, at the wave’s end, even introducing him, or her, or they, it, to the never-gets-old pleasures of a throwaway air.
“Could be Kelly’s Michael Jackson’s-baby-dangle-off-the-balcony-moment coming up,” writes one commenter although, I think, as one commenter correctly puts it, “some might say it’s a doll.”
Do you think child alive or plastic?
If plastic, why?
If real, why not!
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