[ MAUKA MAKAI ]
Years of surfing success
hasn't stopped Kelly Slater
from fulfilling his pipe dreams
IT TAKES only 10 minutes to track down which surf contest six-time world champion Kelly Slater is currently competing in, but two weeks of discussions and dozens of long distance telephone calls to try to arrange a telephone interview to discuss -- not his athleticism in the waves or even his disappointing fifth place finish at the Boost Mobile Pro of Surf in San Clemente, Calif. -- but his autobiography "Pipe Dreams."
"Kelly is surfing," "Kelly can't be reached," "Kelly got the message but hasn't called back," his publicist, Shelby Mead of Fresh Clean, said during two weeks of waiting.
Among other "revelations" in his autobiography, Slater, 31, talks about his intense dislike for notoriety, being noticed everywhere he goes, doing countless interviews, photo sessions and other how-hard-can-it-be activities which earn him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and made him a millionaire a few times over.
Slater writes that he has put away a couple million dollars -- "almost enough to live off the interest" -- so he can travel and surf without business obligations.
"Kelly has checked out," said Mead, who has been calling him every four hours for two weeks to set up the interview. "This is the way the kid is. Something happens and he checks out of everything; doesn't return calls. Frustrating for everyone but ... believe me honey, the publishers would love for Kelly to do lots of interviews, but when he checks out he checks out, and right now he's checked out.
"He didn't do too well in this last contest and this is one of the ways he deals with it. Checking out."
Calls to his current manager Terry Hardy weren't returned.
Book tours are out of the question for Slater, who is back on the world tour trying to capture his seventh world crown.
PIERRE TOSTEE
Kelly Slater's a six-time world champion who's penned his autobiography.
FOR NONSURFERS who might need an introduction to Slater's world, the 5-foot-9, 160-pound Slater is the only one to have ever won six world championships, eclipsing Australian Mark Richards's four crowns. In the surfing world, Slater is simply the greatest competitor the world has seen since Duke Kahanamoku.
He brought once-thought-impossible moves to surfing, which had been dominated by purists who preferred "the glide," carving elegant lines on 9-foot plus boards.
Slater changed all that, doing spectacular off-the-lip maneuvers on breaking waves while riding short, paper-thin boards, or performing aerials and floaters over breaking curls to demonstrate his wave-riding superiority.
"I've exceeded every goal I've ever set," Slater told the Star-Bulletin in an earlier interview.
Then he took a year off in 1999 "to look for a new fuel source."
"I was winning contests on anger, but I used all the angry energy up," he said. "I used to be able to fire up for anyone who'd beaten me in a heat, anyone who said anything negative in a magazine. I tried not just to win heats, but to dominate them ..."
As chronicled in his book, Slater kept a log of every heat he lost, writing about miscues that included "Impatience," or "Catching too many waves."
Slater wrote that he would get so mad at himself for missing a turn he'd bang his head and fists against the board, head-butt it, and curse at himself.
But there was an even more important reason why Slater pursued surfing in his youth.
"It took me away from my parents fighting constantly and getting divorced when I was 11, and from my anger at my dad," he said in an interview. "He drank a lot -- he almost killed me in a car. I was always scared, when I was younger, to talk to him about the ... drinking.
"He knew that I was thinking about it because I brought it up in interviews. It was probably a cop-out that way ... but when I thought about asking him directly ... I got a cold sweat ..."
Slater learned to surf from his father, and Slater's firsthand familiarity with his father's alcoholism kept him away from drugs and drink.
"I was lucky because a lot of people get addicted to pills ... I got addicted to surfing," he said. "Both are escapes. And now I equate my feelings about surfing with a certain kind of relationship, one where you've been abused and a girl comes along and heals the scars and puts you back on your feet.
"Then ... you wake up and think, 'Do I really love this person who healed me? Why am I even with her?' Surfing is like that girl, and now I want to see if I even like her."
QUICKSILVER PHOTO
Rather than seeking solace from his troubled childhood in booze and pills, Kelly Slater took refuge in surfing, managing to attain financial security, if not peace of mind.
IN 1992, soon after Slater was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People," he got a recurring role on "Baywatch," playing Jimmy Slade, who lived in a yellow Chevy van and surfed when he wasn't battling international jewel thieves. He hated to recite dialogue such as, "Hey, Summer, if I hot-wire my van, can I park it at your mom's trailer tonight?"
"All the stories were pretty stupid," Slater said in an earlier interview. "They showed me waking up in the morning in my van, and the sun is setting over the water, with an onshore breeze, when in the morning it's always glassy -- ridiculous. ... Overall it inspired me not to act."
Slater ended up begging his former agent Bryan Taylor to get him out of his contract, largely because fellow surfers believed Slater had sold out the sport.
"I used that grudge against those guys to drive myself harder, and I won my first world title that year," he said. "A lot of guys are like, 'F...k contests, surfing is about loving the waves, about the community, man. But they're also the first guys to kick you out of the water at their break."
Make no mistake that Slater has lived in a very protected world. He knows he's very good at denial and avoidance of uncomfortable situations. Slater has said he's spending more time with his daughter, the product of a brief relationship, but that will be harder to do this year now that he's back on the world tour.
"I do have the ideal life," Slater has said. "I have maybe 30 good surfboards, some guitars, some golf clubs and enough money (so) I can fly anywhere I want. I own property in Hawaii, where I want to build a house, and I can keep my condos in Florida and Australia, and be in the water and be warm all the time."
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