Steve Shearer April 01, 2009

Yesterday was a lay day. For non-golfing human beings that means a 13th Beach redux. We got there and saw the famous brown dome shining in the pale Victorian sun, checking the surf. That lifted the mood, but then he was gone. He'd smelled a rat, the possibility of a media orgy that could erupt into a full blown spontaneous public Kellygasm along the low-shrubbed 13th Beach dunes. Mobs of kids running in from everywhere, teenaged girls mostly, sobbing hysterically and fainting as they get close to the champ.

Well, it's happened before.

"Which way'd he go?" I said to the photog, cause we're now officially the first vultures on the scene and don't want to miss the developing spectacle. "That way", the photog said. "I got his number plate" "Professional", I replied.

And he was in the top carpark, putting out a 'don't come near me' vibe, so we didn't. The photog went down the beach and Kelly pulled out two surfboards from a burnt orange Clubwagon, new, with low rims.

We'll call the surfboards Sled 1 and Sled 2 for the sake of the narrative.

Sled 1 was a small swallow with a pointy nose, that centre-stringered blue foam that indicates epoxy glassing. Hmmm, blue foam, epoxy. Maurice Cole thinks I.

Sled 2 a small round tail, normal pu/pe. Standard Merrick.

Kelly enters a semi-crowded surf with a raggedy little righthander running into a shallow closeout. He surfs Sled 1 first. A teenage boy paddles out on Sled 2, a random boy, we think, that the King has chosen to prevent nosy journos from inspecting the craft. This board thing is a big deal for Slater. It's like the Cold War - the technology secrets must be closely guarded from rival superpowers. And after the wizard sleeve debacle Kelly is playing rope-a-dope with his surfboard selections, re-packaging very small surfboards into shapes that don't offend the aesthetic sensibilities of the judges.

Sled 1 looks good to these eyes, generating speed easily and looking very light and loose in the pocket. After a few warm-up waves Kelly increases the rhythm and intensity of his rides. Then swaps to Sled 2. Sled 2 doesn't look as good. The forward rail bogs in a few cutbacks. He swaps back to Sled 1.

I suited up and thought I might check it out from the water, but as I did Jeremy Flores and then Jordy Smith and Travis Logie showed up. I decide to watch from the beach for a bit longer. Kelly is smoking them. Flores looks jerky and terribly messy in his style. After his recent outburst where he raised the spectre of an anti-European bias in ASP judging it's hard to take him seriously. Seriously.

Jordy is in a pink wetsuit but looks lumbering compared to Slater. He's got twenty extra kilos and a full head of hair to get moving compared to Slater and simple physics would dictate a material advantage for Slater over Jordy in small surf. Slater also has a mental advantage, his razor sharp intelligence has only one weak link: a penchant for conspiracy theories that fellow Pros have so far failed to exploit.

If I was a top Pro I would paddle up to Old Baldy every heat and whisper to him, "I love you man, but you know that Man didn't really walk on the Moon don't you?"

Slats came in and changed into a blue golfing shirt. I asked him about the two sleds. "Is the blue one a Maurice?", I asked. "Yep", he replied, then offered the dims "5'7" by 18/12 by 2/14 or so" "Epoxy over polyurethane?" "Yes" "What about the other one?" "Standard Merrick, poly glassing" I offered my summation, "Well the blue one seemed much better under your feet" He was quick to correct me. "Yeah, that felt better in the pocket but the Merrick was faster on the flats." Then the King put his hand up as a gesture of finality to indicate the conversation was over.

That board wasn't faster. Kelly was playing politics. After Bobby Martinez dropped a Mexican grenade on the Merrick team, Slater was compelled to publicly defend the boards. And Maurice was famously excluded from the official Channel Islands/Merrick hagiography film Flow. Even though his shapes were under the feet of Curren in his famous World Title win from the trials.

Much to think about here sports fans. This issue will not go away and if Slater rides the Maurice epoxy the reverberations will detonate through Team Merrick with unforseeable consequences.

There's one more item of business we must table here, for the sake of completeness, and that is the Rip Curl Media Night. For those unawares, the Outsider showing up at the Rip Curl World Headquarters could be likened to Pol Pot showing up at the United Nations to deliver a lecture on human rights. It's not a concept that floats easily on it's own buoyancy, so to speak.

The joint was packed with cool kids, aging media hacks, Brazilian and European television producers and flim-flammery and costumed tartuffery of every shape and description. I needed fresh air about two seconds after walking in.

Outside I followed a thick scent of marijuana and found...Tommy Peterson. Puh-lease, let no-one be surprised or put on any kind of sanctimonious and manufactured shock that Tommy Peterson is standing down the back of the smoking area, coughing his lungs up, smoking a bunger the size of a thick beef sausage.

He looks like Michael looked in 1977, which is to say, fabulously greyhound thin, with a full mane of lion-like hair down to his shoulders and an unironic moustache. He has a long flanellete dress shirt on. The kind that was briefly popular in the grunge era.

There's a haze of recognition in his eyes when he spots me and I greeted him warmly and enthusiastically. In between coughing fits he tells me he's retired, "two years, six months and eight days, haw, haw, haw" he laughs uproariously which turns into a coughing spasm so violent I slapped him between the shoulder blades.

A young hipster in skinny jeans is waiting outside the movable toilets and Tommy, apropos of nothing, suddenly yells at the guy "Go on in man, the light is green, ain't no-one gunna bash you in there.........haw, haw, haw."

The young hipster turned and looked but Tommy was so far outside his frame of reference it might as well have been some kind of ghost speaking. I don't believe the kid had the mind to process the image of Tommy standing there....all he saw was empty space.

There was a fox standing beside Tommy now, a thin, tall blonde with a rainbow coloured Rip Curl singlet on. She prodded Tommy and said, "Hey man, what's that your smoking?" Tommy tries to answer but erupts into another coughing fit, which ends with a thin dribble of sputum coming out of his mouth and hanging in the spotlit night for what seemed like an eternity.

The Rip Curl fox sort of visibly recoiled and I felt like I needed to step in as an advocate. "Do you know who this guy is?", I said. "This is Tommy Peterson", I continued without waiting for an answer, "brother of Michael Peterson." The girl was nodding mechanically, she took a brief glance over shoulder to establish a route of escape. "Yeah", I said, "and if it wasn't for Michael Peterson, this company, this gig, your job, wouldn't exist" "Right Tommy?" Tommy nodded enthusiastically. "You know what you should do", I said to the fox, I was getting a little worked up to tell the truth, based on the fact of the hipster disrespecting Tommy. She shrugged her shoulders. "You should get an autograph off this man, and put it in a very safe place, for your grandchildren." I pulled my gold leopard skin pen out of my pocket. The fox looked confused. Then she said "OK....sign this new Rip Curl wetsuit top....this isn't even for sale, you know that?"

Sometimes cultures collide.

Tommy had put on some small reading glasses and had them perched on the end of his nose. He looked like a distinguished professor of some esoteric body of knowledge. Which he is I suppose. He signed the girls top and she faded away into the crowd. "Heres to you Tommy Peterson, heaven holds a place for those who pray" .

I had a recco looking for the STAB writers but they was mysteriously absent, invite lost in the mail no doubt. I did talk to Reggae Ellis about the STAB/Fanning imbroglio. He said a few choice things and then when I asked him if I could quote him on that he went slightly bashful. "No, but you can say this". So I got my notebook and pen out and recorded the following quote: "STAB is the lowest standard of surf journalism ever seen since man first stood on a surfboard".

All this strong language was making me feel claustrophobic so I wandered outside and walked home.

Funny old world.