Pipe Dreams: A Surfer's Journey

I came across Kelly Slater's autobiography, Pipe Dreams: A Surfer's Journey, a few weeks ago in the library and just had to read it. I love all sports so it shouldn't be surprising to you that I even used to watch surfing contests on t.v. back when they actually televised some of them. There was also a short-lived, reality-style show about some surfers living in a house together for the summer and I watched all 5 or 6 episodes. I still remember some of the big name surfers like Sunny Garcia, Andy Irons, Tom Curren, and of course Kelly Slater, who will go down as a surfing legend when he finally retires for good.

It was a great book. Kelly seems to have the stereotypical surfing attitude. He is totally laid-back, loves the earth and being outdoors, and wasn't interested in being in the spotlight but just doing something he has loved from a very early age. I enjoyed reading about his childhood and his rise to surfing god. I especially loved the parts about Jack Johnson since I'm a fan of his as well. There is also some stories about Eddie Vedder too who I didn't know was a friend of Kelly's and does some surfing himself. Who would have thought that the lead singer of Pearl Jam was into surfing? I loved reading about Kelly's thoughts on Pamela Anderson. Since we usually only hear about celebrity relationships from a third party magazine source, it was fun to hear firsthand his story of dating her. His stories about being part of the "Baywatch" cast are hilarious. Apparently he thought the show was as corny as everyone else.
Anyway, it was a pretty cool book and I happened to come across an article a couple of days ago that talks about Kelly and how he is probably the greatest athlete that no one has heard of. He has dominated his sport for the last 2o years, winning 9 world titles. You can read the whole article HERE

I thought I'd throw out another recommendation to anyone interested in a good autobiography. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.