Surf Burp — a gaseous release of vaguely surf-related pressure, unceremoniously expelled from the bowels of the social media monster. Now, them pro surfers gots to earn they crust too you know, just like members of parliament and us regular poor folks. This means they gots to find theyselves a “bit on the side”, an extra pie to finger — because that coke habit/SUV/Picasso oil painting isn’t going to pay for itself. This week we’ll be looking at the various sources of supplementary income available to the modern professional surfer.
Take Aritz, for instance. After dropping off the world tour he finds himself back on the QS grind, and is forced to fund his re-qualification campaign with part-time work as a pizza delivery boy. When Leo Fioravanti was laid up in hospital following his back-breaking wipeout at Pipe, he had Aritz’s number on speed-dial, and would even make the poor man feed him slice-by-slice, complete with aeroplane actions and sound-effects.
Unable to surf for the next few months due to his injury, Leo was left with no option but to sign on for disability benefits in his native Italy. Here he is in happier times.
When he decided to leave Quiksilver last April, Kelly Slater thought he’d be able to get by on prize money alone, but things haven’t quite worked out the way he’d hoped. He didn’t win a contest all last year, and has had to fall back on Plan B: carpentry. Inviting further comparisons with Jesus Christ, Kelly recently announced plans to bring out his own line of pro furniture.
The carpentry pays OK, but not quite as well as appearing in half-time Superbowl ads…
Matto Wilky fancies himself as a bit of a cowboy, and has recently invested in a hay bale, a pair of leopard-spot shoes, and two cowgirl assistants, possibly called Amber and Sally-Mae.
There is evidence to suggest, however, that Wilky has also developed an (unhealthy?) addiction to gambling on pig races.
Noa Deane probably doesn’t do too badly out of fucking the WSL for a living, but why not finger a pie or two while he’s at it? Noa, whose Instagram handle — don’t ask us why — is @ilovetables, is a keen guitar player, and by the looks of things he’s been doing a few gigs lately. True, he does look an awful lot like PJ Harvey in this photo, but we’re pretty sure it’s Noa.
Gabriel Medina may now have a world-title in the bag, but you never know when the gravy train might dramatically derail. For this reason he’s been practising his football skills with homeboy Neymar Jr., who is trying to convince the Brazilian coach Dunga that the national side could do with some of Medina’s steel in the centre-back position.
Gabes has also been training as a tattooist. His old man Charlie gave him carte blanche to do as he liked with his forearm, and this is what Gabriel came up with.
Charlie didn’t really seem to mind too much though.
This one’s a few weeks old now, but we felt that such an accomplished piece of artwork was deserving of a wider audience — not too many people seem to follow Bobby Martinez on Instagram. We also admire the lengths Bob continues to go to just in order to say “fuck you” to the surfing powers that be. Bobby fucked the WSL (back then the ASP) good and proper, and I’m not sure he really makes any money out of surfing any more; most of his current income derives from the sales of these delightful pencil crayon drawings, to which he devotes himself with tireless dedication, producing roughly ten a day.
Big-wave specialist Andrew Cotton is over in Hawaii at the moment, and just surfed Jaws for the first time, but he genuinely does have to supplement what little he earns from surfing by doing “proper jobs.” A lifeguard on the beaches of Devon over the summer months, Cotty is also a first-rate plumber.
And lastly, what eructation of surfing social media would be complete without the Queen of Instagram herself, Alana B. No longer among the elite of women’s surfing on the world tour, she has accepted a post as a shop assistant at the Rip Curl Manly Corso store, where we wish her the best of luck.
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