"Answer my question. The question. JERK!"

John McEnroe. Stockholm, 1984.

Truth be told I came within a bees dick of boycotting the opening day of competition at Snapper Rocks 2012. Nightmares in the wee hours. Thudding heart in the chest. Panic and fear running rampant. Paranoia. Crowds.

Sirens and products rammed in your face. The spectre of a random drug or alcohol test. Maybe getting false-cracked by some disgruntled industry hack who took umbrage to your tone. Such thoughts sadden and angry up the bloodstream. It almost seemed easier to feed the chooks in amongst the pre-dawn birdsong and watch it on the computer, bypass the psychological distress.

Nonetheless, on the sands of Snapper rocks I wuz, as the opening hooters sounded and various girls of mostly pre-teen and teen-ages were being strongly sold on the benefits of living the Roxy life and following their dreams. The atmosphere is strictly steamy with commerce, potential if not actual, and I'm wondering how the hell these new rookies might handle the shifty and scrappy windswell detonating from behind the rock.

Was there a Dane in the new crew? Some kind of new artiste in the making. A renaissance man who could parlay competition success into a lucrative career cannibalising sales from his main sponno. John John Florence and 'Brother' Andino were chief targets for this concern. I was shitting a house-sized brick, like any like minded sports fan, that John John Florence might start to read and become edumucated, leaving the tour with a well written freedom manifesto and depriving us of his talents.

On the drive north I calculated by logic a word association test based on Bukowskis pome, 'So you wanna be a writer'. My Bukowski Word Association Test was designed to identify any nascent tendencies towards excessive creative thought and hipsterism.

I'm sure something happened before Dane, Parko's and Melling's heat, but I couldn't say what. I really couldn't. The Messiah boosted and got a massive score. "Whaddya reckon?" I asked Snips Parsons and Dino Andino - they were somehow down in cattle class with the rest of the surf peasants standing beside me. "7.3," answered Snips sagely. "8.5," I replied, "For the resumption of the love affair". And it was an 8.4. The judges had Dane spreadeagled in front of them and they weren't going to resist his comely invitations.

Dane seemed representative of something - lost love maybe? - as there was a palpable stirring of juices amongst the crowds whose faces were turned in ecstasy to the Messiah. But he lost. Somewhere in a room, alone with his thoughts, a man called Brodie Carr, yelled at a screen," You're nothing to me now Reynolds! Begone!"

Now it was Kolohe's turn to face the crowd, up against Kelly Slater in his World Tour debut. His father and coach stood beside me maintaining a constant stream of commentary in low voices which was strangely soothing mixed in with the mind polluting loudspeakers. "No, no, no, no, no," Snips was churring as Brother caught his first wave for the 2012 season; a little runner that went nowhere fast.

And then Old Baldy was getting ejected out of a deep barrel from behind the rocks and Dino Andino was standing slackjawed shaking his head slowly. "C'mon Brother!" said Snips as a response to the Slater barrel. It was a strong call and not at all forlorn. Not at all like our great white hope was about to get devoured by a forty year old man.

Christ, forty! Garret and Kolohe together couldn't make his age.

But hang on. Kolohe is running back around and there's a crisis! He has no board. Snips is waiting down on the sand ready to offer a sage piece of advice. "The board. The board!" yells Dino. And Snips is sprinting back up to grab a new Mayhem thruster (quite meaty on the rail), running back to the sand and almost dragging some poor Brazilian g-string clad princess's ear off with the legrope. It's a brutal business this surf coaching. It reminds one of navy seals or firefighters running through a life and death drill. Except this is more important than life and death. This being nothing less than the emergence of Target, Nike and Brother Andino on the big stage.

Of course, Old Baldy cleaned his clock and when Slater came in with the surging crowd hoping to get a little taste of the forty year old magic Dino Andino stood there on the shore slightly slackjawed staring at Slater shaking his head slowly. Target and Nike, meet the cold hard fist of reality.

I grabbed a little face time with Slater after the media scrum. Thankfully, he hadn't connected me with the wavepool article.

"With J-Bay getting downgraded and the surf industry sailing into troubled waters is there any pressure, either externally or from within, considering you are such a massive drawcard and cornerstone of the sport..." "I thought you said pornstar" "No, cornerstone, sorry" ( Slater laughs uproariously) "Is there any feeling for you to hang back and hold the sport together?" "I haven't even thought of that. I understand what your saying with my popularity outside the sport and whatever. As far as the level of surfing goes there's zero problem. It really comes down to business. Whose to say it's a bad thing?" "If it falls to bits." "A little bit. Everything has growing pains. You make mistakes growing up and these companies are trying to go from hundreds of millions to billions. It's a tricky thing to do. There's gunna be some shakedowns. A lot of people have been let go from Quiksilver. I feel guilty about it. It's heartbreaking cause that's their life." "A couple of years ago Brodie was down on his bended knee to you, begging you to stay on tour. Had any late night phone calls recently from prospective CEO's saying 'Kelly don't go'?" "(laughs) Nah, no. In fact Brodie's been calling me asking me to get him his job back....No, kidding." "Well he's got the runs on the board as far as getting you to stay" "I haven't had anyone whatsoever in my ear to make a choice one way or the other" "Is there any kind of stewardship role for you in the near future?" "No, not formally. But surfing is my life and has been forever. I'm always happy to help out". "Once you get past pure surfing performance and winning world titles is there anything in your heart of hearts about wanting to give back as far as legacy goes?" "Actually I'm still sort of in that competitive mindframe and because of that I've been working on some smaller elite contests for some of the guys, some of the best in the world" "Like a little champions circuit?" "Not a circuit, more one-off events. More like fun style events. Kind of a mix of being able to compete but in a freesurf way". "So this would be under your own name?" "It's not about me, it's more about trying to create this thing where guys can deal with rivalries and bring it out and display it without it being as formal as a contest. A little looser, a little more radical." "So, this is your vision?" "This is my vision for now." Ok, you're looking pretty ripped. Been training with MMA" "Nah, just steroids, pretty much (laughs).

Rebel Tour? Or is Slater creating by his own hand what the companies cannot? Slater on steroids? Thats enough to give a drug tester a priapism. So many questions.

I finally cornered Brother Andino to give him the inaugural Bukowski Word Association Test. These are the results. "Hi Kolohe, welcome to the Cold Ghost" "Uh huh." "A lot of people are wondering, well we saw Dane explode onto the tour and quit in a blaze of artistic glory, how committed are you to the Pro Tour as opposed to doing a Dane?" "Ahhhhhhhhh. very committed. I'm never gunna do that, so you don't have to worry 'bout that. I wanna be on the tour and I wanna win world titles." "Ever read Bukowski?" "Huh?" "Ever read any Charles Bukowski?" "Ah, I've never finished a book in my life". "I'm gunna do a Bukowski Word Association Test. I'll say a word and you say the first word that comes to mind." "Fame." "Kelly Slater" "Glory." "Kelly Slater" "Money." "Jordy Smith." "OK, you passed mate. Well done. All the best".

No need to worry about the Brother. He's solid Pro Surfer all the way through. No squiggly t-shirts in his future.

I had to repair for a soothing ale before John John tore Snapper a new one, so I leave you with the verse of Charles Bukowski from which the Word Association Test was taken. "If your doing it for fame or money, don't do it. When it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it Until you die or it dies in you. There is no other way. And there never was."