Chapter: 8
The Ride of Your Life
- Is Surfing Hip?
- Lisa Andersen Surfs Better Than You
- Killer Cute
- Kelly Slater is Just Warming Up
- Rebel for Hire
- I Believe I Can Fly
- A Monster in Half Moon Bay
- Mark Foo's Last Ride
- Open Throttle
- Laird Means Lord
- Tahitian Scream
- A Webcam for Every Wave
- Last Call for Print Media
- Taylor Steele Likes it Rough
- Searching for the Perfect Phrase
- Hollywood Tries Again
- Thirty is the New Twenty
- Andy Irons' Poetic Fury
- The Beast and Beyond
- A Dance with the Past
- Foam is Dead, Long Live Foam
- Nature Gets a Makeover
- Surf in a Box
- The End of History
Rebel for Hire
![Johnny-Boy Gomes. Photo: Jeff Divine](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/2f60f47a5c3f9c3d792b2d9cf9c7442a6f5220b0-1280x720.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Johnny-Boy Gomes. Photo: Jeff Divine
![Johnny-Boy Gomes, 1995. Photo: John Callahan](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/04d379e500d4576be954bf95c777aeb444de1df0-1280x720.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Johnny-Boy Gomes, 1995. Photo: John Callahan
![Kala Alexander. Photo: Cory Lum](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/7d531dcdbda78a76622f5f40d9b4c7bf02bb0f16-1280x720.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Kala Alexander. Photo: Cory Lum
![Koby Abberton, Ours, 2006. Photo: Nathan Smith](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/dfd2277bdb7f8f695265aa14f42fc50bf959a45a-1280x720.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Koby Abberton, Ours, 2006. Photo: Nathan Smith
![Koby (left) and Sunny Abberton, with Russell Crowe](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/d680023ea3fb7efe5abf25c298c6732ed3edda86-1280x720.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Koby (left) and Sunny Abberton, with Russell Crowe
Johnny-Boy Gomes, like heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, was a knockout talent, with blinding speed, explosive power, and awesome confidence. He was also a bully and a thug. As surf journalist Tim Baker put it, Gomes had "soured more surf sessions, for more people, than anyone alive.”
Kelly Slater hand-painted his own boards, told reporters that Noam Chomsky was his favorite writer, and occasionally pulled a world-tour no-show. In other words, he did just enough to be thought of as independent and mildly quirky. Yet Slater was never less than a model surfer-citizen: likable and well-mannered and always acting—in the hoary but still-popular phrase—for “the good of the sport.” H...
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