Culture
The Last Best Surfer By Justin Housman
DRAWING BY JAMES JARVIS
I
Florida rest stop? Fine. For the purposes of this column, it doesn’t actually matter. Regardless of your age, your dog’s name, where in the world you surf, or even if you surf, you almost certainly believe that Kelly Slater is the undisputed Greatest Surfer of All Time (trumpet sound). What you might not be aware of, however, is that Kelly Slater will also be the last undisputed Greatest Surfer of All Time. No one after Slater will hold that position again, from now until the sun expands, consuming everything we’ve ever known. And it has nothing to do with Slater’s surfing talent (talented as he certainly is). The culture itself has shifted. It’s worth pointing out just how long Slater has held the GOAT title. Any surfer still breathing has witnessed at least part of Slater’s brilliant career. Retired surfers who haven’t paid a shred of attention to competitive surfing in years »
f you’re the sort of surfer who takes time to read this magazine and aren’t simply flipping through the pages to drool over the photos, then I’m confident I can sketch a spot-on picture of you, dear reader. You’re a man, roughly 31 years old. You’re a goofyfoot, and you surf twice a week. You first got tubed on a trip to Costa Rica when you were 19. You work as a sales rep for a beer distribution company in Ocean City, New Jersey. You drive a 2009 Subaru Forester (blue; dent in right rear fender), you have an Australian sheepdog called Randy, your favorite band is The Pixies (well, you tell people that, but really it’s the Dave Matthews Band), your wife’s name is Robin, and she has a double-jointed elbow. Her left. What? None of that is true, you say? You’re actually a 60-year-old woman in San Diego? An 18-year old college kid in Hawaii? A bored truck driver reading an issue you found in a
036
