“Tyler’s queerness shouldn’t be a burden or an obstacle in her workplace.”

Back in October, Mikey Wright launched a stinging attack on the World Surf League for scheduling an event at the Kelly Slater tank in Abu Dhabi claiming his sis could face death in the otherwise peace-loving Islamic enclave. 

“You have no business putting on an event at a location where my sister can be sentenced by law with the death penalty. So much for equality and equal rights, only when it’s convenient to wsl. You have supported the LGBTQ flag on her shoulder but now you want to strip it and be hush hush to get her to a location that she’s at risk of this punishment. You have the responsibility to protect your athletes, interested to see how you think you can protect her against the law.” 

Tyler’s wife Lilli also had a swing at the beleaguered WSL writing,

“Unfortunately homosexuality is illegal at one of the locations and my wife can legally be sentenced to death or imprisonment if she tries to attend. Tyler has competed on this tour for over 14 years and has had the pride flag on her jersey since 2020. Even after winning two world titles she is still not valued enough by the WSL to be considered when they sold this event. Tyler’s queerness should not have to be a burden or an obstacle in her workplace.”

Well, in a surprise concession to the LGBTQ+ juggernaut, the Abu Dhabi wavepool has tacitly acknowledged that attraction can be fluid and not necessarily confined to binary gender constructs by quietly introducing gender neutral bathrooms in readiness, one presumes, for the WSL event there in February.

An online sleuth forwarded this photograph from social media of the surf minstrel Jack Johnson photographed near gender neutral toilets where everyone is welcome. It doesn’t matter where you fall on the Kinsey Scale, whether you be trans, bi, queer, pan, omni, ace, grey, demi, homosexual or, even, and ugh, heterosexual.

Where do you val on the Kinsey Scale, that continuum from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual, with the various degrees of bisexuality in between?

One being wildly hetero, ten being as a queer as a seventeen dollar bill, as they used to say.

“Kelly’s car has been cared for very well and changed many parts to new ones.”

If you were ever after a slice of surf memorabilia wrapped up in the genius that is the Japanese Kei car, well, you’re not going to stroll past Kelly Slater’s 1990 Honda Street four-wheel-drive.

Kei cars, also known as “kei-jidosha” or “light automobiles,” are a unique category of small vehicles in Japan with specific size and engine displacement limitations set by the government.

The dang things are everywhere in the land of stagnant real estate, millions of made over the years, and Kelly’s has a wheelbase of 75 inches, a 660 cc engine with a top speed of sixty-five miles an hour. It is, if you need perspective, the size of a refrigerator laid on its side, yet surprisingly spacious inside, fitting four adults inside real easy.

Kelly’s Honda has a miserly 24,000 miles on the clock, is painted a gorgeous two-tone navy blue and white and a with a grey-and-off white cloth interior.

Room for sleds, your pals, and it ain’t gonna faint if you get it near a little sand, although it is recommended to replace those tiny 12-inch wheels with something that’s gonna give you clearance and bite.

Price? Twelve gees.

The excellent Instagram page @backinthedayhawaii listed Kelly’s Honda and at the time of writing somebody had already scooped it up.

But who knows? What is the buyer can’t get finance? Or there’s a change of mind? 

You gonna buy?

And why Kelly selling such a pretty thing?