The Surfer: Nicolas Cage flounders in a sun-scorched plagiarism of Wake in Fright

“I need you to come over right now,” Slater told
best pal Benji Weatherley.

It is a remarkable thing that even after forty years in
the spotlight, Kelly Slater still has the ability to surprise with
revelations about a life
lived almost entirely in the
public square

And in a new interview Slater has pulled back the velvet curtain
on a dark chapter when he, very briefly it must be noted,
considered suicide.

The year is 1993. Slater is the hottest thing in the sport, the
reigning world champ, the youngest ever, a surfer of zeitgeist
shifting talent whom the previous generation, Gary Elkerton, Martin
Potter and co, can’t get near.

It drives Pottz and Kong nuts, in particular, alpha bears
flexing and grunting but failing, spectacularly, to rattle the
wildly talented twink.

But then the ol wheels start to spin off their hubs and, to the
surprise of everyone, Slater finishes the year sixth behind Derek
Ho, Damien Hardman, Gary Elkerton, Pottz and Tom Curren, surfers,
with the exception of Tom Curren, he’d usually beat in his
sleep.

In an interview with the comic and RVCA sales rep Jay Larson and
the noted Filipino surfer-skater Lyndon “Choccy” Cabello, Kelly
Slater says it was the embarrassment of his results that had him
sitting in his hotel room contemplating ways to kill himself.

Kelly Slater, whose vulnerability is evident in
his ongoing online debates with surf fans
, tells his
hosts he doesn’t want to get into it too deeply, but “I was
suicidal…I was so depressed and I had a moment where I was, like,
ok, I’m considering this.”

The host asks Slater if his sponsors offered help and he tells
‘em, well yeah, if they knew. But, he says, he was in his hotel
room in Kirra on the Gold Coast and called up old friend Benji
Weatherley, staying nearby, and asked for his help.

“I need you to come over right now,” he told Benji.

This little fork in the road, says Slater, convinced him the
pain of losing was far greater than the joys of cruising the tour
with pals.

“I remember thinking, I have to put everything I have into (pro
surfing) and see how far I can go with this competitive thing, all
my focus, everything I do in the day effects how I’ll go. That was
a real learning lesson, to get me focussed and on target.”

Slater is asked if any books got his head right and he says,
yeah, he was reading the Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity,
Modern Practical Guide to the Ancient Way is a book by Daniel
Reid.
The book was first published in 1989 and
explores Taoist principles for diet, exercise, breathing,
meditation, sexual practices, and more, emphasizing balance and
harmony with nature’s rhythms.

Reid famously encouraged sexual yoga where men are encouraged to
conserve energy by limiting ejaculation, redirecting it to enhance
vitality, a practice long enjoyed by your old pal DR.

The book was so fundamental to Kelly Slater’s life he named his
kid after it, explaining to the host that white people pronounce it
Tao, like with a T, and the BIPOC among us, use a
D, like, Dao.

Suicide talk swings in at eighty-eight minutes.

Also, who else into sexual yoga? I believe it should be taught
in schools etc.

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