Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay Joel Parkinson: Under the Armour

In: Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay by Steve Shearer 16 Comments Wed 13th Jul '11

Tags: joel parkinson , wittgenstein , The Outsider

"What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."- Wittgenstein

This story is about Parko. You probably figured that out already. Us Parko tragics have learned to pay attention to the small things, to consider everything in the minutest detail, because believe me, everything counts. Pay attention here sports fans, we are learning together. We are embarking on this journey with open minds and hearts, in an effort to engage with an artist of our times. He has strength, he has flexibility, he has repertoire. Above all, he has the music in his blood. The blood music which makes a symphony, when he, Joel Parkinson, son of a bricklayer from Coolangatta, rides a surfboard.

When I asked him what capacity of his he had improved most in his pointbreak surfing he answered, "Rhythm...doing the right thing at the right time". There is nothing revolutionary in that, Joel is not prone to emotional verbosity. But I asked him other things as well, and we will get to these other things, these things that people don't like to talk about in public. This could get very weird, very quickly. You have been warned.

The grin is still there, but now it wears a different complexion, the jaw sets into something like a grimace, and a wry smile marked by the bitter disappointment of loss spreads across the face. Two years in a row ripped asunder by injury. The first in a year when it seemed that the Title would be granted him by divine providence after crushing wins in succession at Kirra, Bells and J-Bay. We all saw the agonisingly humiliating final scene; pitched from the lip at Pipeline like a rank beginner against a wildcard whose name is long since forgotten. Then the famous hoof, ripped almost in two by his fin at the homebreak. And then the death of close friend and bulwark against the imperiousness of Slater - Andy Irons. There was family life on the other side of darkness for Andy. A life like Parko's, where kids frolic in the shorebreak and men glow with patriarchal content as they gaze with proud eyes on the fruits of their loins. Andy wanted that too, in a way that Slater could never understand.

It's quite possible, during the early stages of Joel's career, feted by media as one of the Coolie Three and blessed by the accidental genius of the human hand to enjoy the Superbank in it's prime, that he didn't have the self-belief to become World Champion. It was Fanning who first learnt to jettison the peripheral and destructive aspects of his character to become the champ. There's no doubting the self-belief now. The emotional fuse is kept on slow burn. What was broken has now been fixed. Anyone doubting the desire, still trapped in the past with the goofy grin is severely mistaken.

Creepy Austrian cat Ludwig Wittgenstein probably wasn't talking about surfing when he stated the following: "To understand what human beings produce you must understand how they act, why they act and the meaning that they give to what they do." But it illuminates an important part of the picture. Joel produces professional surfing. The meaning of professional surfing is to win a World Title. The how of Joel's surfing is the lineage of Australian surfing. It is a culmination of careful breeding and training. As a teenaged boy Joel was trained in the mindset of oriental warfare by Bugs. The highwater mark of that thinking is 'rising to the occasion'.

But it was Andy Irons, with his penchant for the potent symbol of the rising sun, who was able to master that dictum. And Joel who suffered at the hands of Slater, at Bells, in France and Spain and Hawaii. And now Andy's dead.

I wondered has he come in death to give Joel the support he gave in life?
"Have you seen him since?"
"Yeah, he's come to me in dreams."

Open minds sports fans. But this is crazy talk. Pure mumbo jumbo. Can this even be talked about? The idea that somehow AI in death could be an ally for Joel. Provide some kind of spiritual sustenance to Joel through the year, and may be there in the clutch moments when a World Title is on the line.

But this is a mad world we live in, that's one thing we can count on.

We've got to put this thing back on solid ground. To that end I'm overjoyed to relate that Joel Parkinson is fit and in fine fettle. Well trained and of sober habits, as they say. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that after Brazil, the G-land ruse and the long, long break, during which the Indian Ocean has been whipped by savage storms and long-period groundswells, that this J-Bay event would have to be the most highly anticipated event...maybe ever.

Joel's only enemy now is the forecast. Which looks grim for real J-Bay. Like he has shown for the memory of AI, he must display compassion, boundless compassion for himself. Allow mistakes to happen and maintain composure. Let the music flow.

Parko surfs against Dane Reynolds and Alejo Muniz in Heat 12 Round 1.You've got shit for brains if you miss it.

STOP PRESS: Reynolds out, Slater on the fence.