Stab and Joel Parkinson make a fabulous, if pointless, connection during an afternoon together in southern California…
Portrait photography by Pete Daley
Story by Derek Rielly
Does he care anymore and does it even matter in an epoch
dominated by the most single-minded sportsman in history?
I’ll put it another way. What is the question most often asked of
Joel Parkinson, 27, from Tweed Heads? One guess. When are
you going to win a world title?
You just know, Joel feels like shrieking: I’ve got a family,
I’m on a million-plus a year, sure it’d feel nice, but I’m not
prepared to make the same sacrifices as Kelly. Got it?
Got it.
From close range and for half a decade, Stab has admired
Joel’s work, the crush developing ever since his monster air in
Bicycle. Apart from that best-ever air, Joel’s surfing doesn’t
translate to the cold two-dimensions of the web-casts or DVD.
To appreciate the fine timing and the exquisiteness of his
lightning direction changes, you need to see him surf, live.
This month, as you see, we’ve nominated Joel Parkinson as
our Style Icon. Even in the southern Goldie uniform of kneelength
trunks and white-cotton spinnakers that could slow down
a drag car or save an infant tossed from a burning building, he
looks the goods. He is a big man, 80 kilos or so, hair so brown
it’s almost black. He has the name of his girls, Evie and Macy,
tattooed on his right bicep; a full-sleeve of skulls and similar
iconography is a few months away. He has an easy charm, but
he can turn if bored or if he feels like you’re a bit of a retard.
An hour or so after the smoking final of the Hurley/Boost
contest at Lower Trestles that crippled Taj Burrow and
confirmed Kelly’s title, and while the rest of the 45 are
whooping it up at the Hampton Inn’s spa bath, we find Joel in
the hills out the back of San Clemente, in a crib straight out of
MTV cribs.
“You going to give me some good quotes,” I say.
“I will if you don’t ask me the same dumb questions,”
he says.
Mental note: strike opening gambit regarding world title.
We set up a shoot on the grassy knoll at the front of the
Beachcomber Motel overlooking SC Pier, right near what used
to be the hottest performance track in surfing when Archy and
Christian ruled the skies – T-Street.
As the lights flash, and the sun melts into the western
horizon, random questions are fired.
The easiest thing in the world is to say, ask good questions.
But, what’s a good question? Typically, the best answers
come from the most obvious questions. You send a journalist
to interview a star of any form and, with both egos smashing
through the air, you end up with elaborate questions that
don’t really ask anything, and rehearsed answers from the
subject. Therefore, to avoid any ridicule, I’m asking you:
what do you want me to ask?
Well, it’s not something I think about. It’s not my job.
When you were a kid, and at 27, it wasn’t that long ago,
what did you want to ask your heroes?
I would’ve liked to ask how much money’d they’d been earning
and I’d would’ve liked to’ve asked Hoyo just how wild his
parties were.
The modern surfer would crucify a journalist for that angle.
That’s true.
Talk to me about competitive pressure.
I’ve always enjoyed it. I’m not worried about all the shit around.
It’s me and two waves. I’ll surf a heat, and when I surf a heat
where I get good waves, I get surf stoke from those two waves. I
try to keep it real simple, as simple as I can. Like, my first heat
here at Trestles, I was so stoked.
Are you a talker in heats?
I never used to talk in a heat. But, now, I’ll talk to everyone.
There’s only a few guys I won’t talk to in a heat. During my first
heat, for instance, I was saying, I started singing I Kissed A Girl
(breaks into song).
I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chap stick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don’t mean I’m in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it
Then, Yadin started mumbling it and Timmy goes, I’ve got that
song in my heat too! Y’know, when I’m talking, I’m happy. I
can melt back and relax.
What are the perfect circumstances for your performance?
Do you get tunnel vision, for instance?
I’ll run past everyone, I’ll be a prick, I’ll worry about that later.
I’m not aggro. I’ve got to be happy to surf. I need a happy
confidence. When I’m happy and confident, everything works.
When you take-off, is there a perfect mindset?
There’s actually a few different ones. Sometimes I’ll surprise
myself. I’ll take off and go, mmm, this isn’t the right one, but it
works. If you’re in the right mindset nothing bothers you,
nothing can distract you from the immediate problem of surfing.
Has surfing always come easy to you?
Let me put it this way, there have been times when I haven’t
enjoyed surfing.
What kind of times?
Long stretches of travel, long swells. If I’m surfed out, I’m
done. Righthand points get so boring. This year, when the boys
came, Bruce Irons and I were stepping off at Kirra and it was
fun, but I was just over it. It’s not that I’m over surfing, but it
gets boring… I’m so sick of fucking getting a perfect fivesecond
two-foot barrel.
Do you enjoy talking about surfing?
I hate talking about surfing. I banish it.
How long are your surfs?
An hour and I’m done. Like, I’ll enjoy it, tick off all the things I
wanna get done, and then wrap it.
What, big fin-throw, a little tube, a clean wrap-around cutty,
frontside air?
All I want is to feel solid on my board.
What makes you sign out of a session?
When I lose my board. I try not to use a leash.
How often do you surf during an average, non-epic swell
week at home?
It’s usually three days after I get home before I even think about
going surfing. And then I surf every day. Sometimes, I’ll come
home and only surf D-Bah; sometimes it’ll be Snapper only.
How different would your life be, contractually, sensually,
competitively, if you’d avoided marriage and kids, and been
a rogue playboy like your stablemate Terry Burrow?
I realised young what made me happy. And that was having
someone to share my life with.
Would it have made any
difference?
It’s impossible to tell.
Getting married at 24 was an incredibly mature decision.
It’s easy if you’re desperately unattractive or unpopular to
get married young, but you’re neither.
I was happy, I was loving it. We had a great thing going, we
were really in love and I knew nothing would change it. Even
up to this day, nothing has changed it. Now, even more so. I
laugh at groupies.
Let’s talk about a major crossroad. Six years ago, Quiksilver
tried about as hard as a company can try to get you away
from Billabong. Talk me through what your life would’ve
been like – surf shop in Bermuda, untold riches – if you’d
split from Billabong?
Ah, but the real crossroads was when I was 14 when Rip Curl
tried to pick me up. My contract had run out and it was taking
ages to do another one and Rip Curl told me they wanted to
sponsor me. By that that afternoon, I had found some Rip Curl
stickers and had stickered up my board. As far as I was
concerned, I was sponsored by Rip Curl and I went down to
Bells and stayed at the Rip Curl house for a pro junior. Thing
was, I never signed a contract with Rip Curl and when
Billabong offered me a contract, I flipped back. But ever since
then, I’ve always had a good relationship with Rip Curl..
You’re right about it being a dramatic crossroad. If Rip
Curl had signed you, they wouldn’t have gone after Mick. If
they hadn’t gone after Mick, and if Mick didn’t get all the
incredible support that he gets from Rip Curl, he wouldn’t
have won the title thus it’s entirely conceivable that I could
be talking to the defending world champion here and not the
two-time runner up.
Yeah, well, that’s the thing about crossroads…
Posts: 8
Reply #8 on : Fri February 20, 2009, 01:45:02