"JJF, as you sail around the world broadcasting your privileged life, I hope you’re enjoying the party your President just started."
The surf world was rocked to its very core, early Thursday morning, after surfing’s multi-hyphenate artist-shaper-filmmaker-musician Andrew Kidman cooked John John Florence for littering, I think. Florence has long been considered un-roastable, living an exemplary, if not perfect, surf life. He has won three World Surf League cups, one Eddie Aikau, five Triple Crowns, competitively. He has been captured in some of the greatest surf clips ever shot. He started a core surf brand catering to adventurous sorts. He is sailing the globe with his young family, scouting waves, being chill.
Well, Andrew Kidman is nothing if not an iconoclast and took to social media to share:
A couple of days ago I drove up to Kirra to meet my son. I walked up the beach and found him under the boardwalk, where some of the homeless people sleep. He was tucked in under there, filming his mate Curtis riding a surfboard made by George Greenough. In the last 20 years, George has made no more than 10 surfboards, this is one of them, dubbed “The Child’s board”. Gus was happy, Curtis was struggling, but having a crack, it was his first time riding it. As I walked back to my car, I picked up the broken pieces of surfboards and plastic that washed around the volcanic rocks at Kirra. As I got to the Kirra surf club, there was this broken surfboard laying in the middle of the grass, with nobody taking responsibility for it, the fins had been taken out.
And I’ve been wondering to myself since; how would the two John’s feel if I showed up in Hawaii and started flooding their market with imported, mass-produced surfboards? How would they feel when punters broke them and then just tossed them on their front lawns, or worse still, just left the broken piece in the Ehukai Park for a Native Hawaiian that works for the council to deal with? Not to mention where the other half of this board is, just floating in the Tasman Sea somewhere, gradually releasing its tiny foam baubles for the wildlife.
Picking the broken board up and putting it in the back of my car, reminded me of picking McDonald’s trash up, noting, that at least McDonald’s trash is recyclable now…and now I’m wondering what to do with this half surfboard? JJF, next time you sail this way, will you putt down the Tweed River, filming yourself as you collect the rubbish from its banks and collect this from me at a designated point? Or is there some recycling policy your company has? These are your words, from your company. “We’re building things that motivate us to get outside and thrive in the elements, while doing our best to protect the ocean and the land.” Someone I knew once said. “It all comes out of the same oil well.” JJF, as you sail around the world broadcasting your privileged life, I hope you’re enjoying the party your President just started.
Yikes!
Is the last bit a threat?
Those in the comments were mostly pleased by the hot take, though some were confused, one penning, “Why you dragged John John into America’s war by its failing President and a broken board on the grass left by an Aussie makes no sense. But maybe there’s something I missed…”
Thoughts?