Ask Carroll

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Beanpole
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Beanpole » Sun Aug 02, 2015 10:10 pm

Try to be philosophical about it cranked.
Put your big boy pants on
I mean, tastebuds? WGAF?

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by --++sunstroke++-- » Sun Aug 02, 2015 10:33 pm

Nick Carroll wrote:sunstroke can I ask that you stop posting that drug stuff in here, theres plenty of other threads for it and it's really starting to piss me off.
Hey Nick,

El Rancho, Braithy & others started that like 7 pages ago.

I made 4 replies, only to clarify other peoples misconceptions, not overtake your thread mate.
What's the difference between Elizabeth Warren & Kamala Harris?

One's pretending to be an Indian & the others pretending she isn't!

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by crabmeat thompson » Sun Aug 02, 2015 10:40 pm

I did no such thing, you horrendous man.
Kunji wrote:
Wed May 27, 2020 8:09 am
Would you mind throwing in a little more homoeroticism

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by --++sunstroke++-- » Sun Aug 02, 2015 10:44 pm

Braithy wrote:I did no such thing, you horrendous man.
Page 358 mate.
What's the difference between Elizabeth Warren & Kamala Harris?

One's pretending to be an Indian & the others pretending she isn't!

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by crabmeat thompson » Sun Aug 02, 2015 10:59 pm

nonsense you ninkinpoop
Kunji wrote:
Wed May 27, 2020 8:09 am
Would you mind throwing in a little more homoeroticism

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by --++sunstroke++-- » Mon Aug 03, 2015 12:18 am

Reality is like a rubber band. The further you pull away from it, the harder it will smack you when you are least expecting it.
What's the difference between Elizabeth Warren & Kamala Harris?

One's pretending to be an Indian & the others pretending she isn't!

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Nick Carroll » Mon Aug 03, 2015 5:49 am

In reality, I asked everyone to drop the subject four pages ago - before you started in on it.

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by foamy » Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:15 am

Nick Carroll wrote:
foamy wrote:Nick, while TC is a 2 time world surfing champion and you've had a day job, I thought you might pip him on paddle board surf skills, but you had no doubt that Tom was the person to take it thru the breakers. Why is Tom so good at surfing a paddle board?
He's no better than me, indeed I am probably a fair bit more skilled than him at riding waves on a paddle board. But I wanted him to finish the race and play a role in the finish that's suited to his surfing skills, and he wanted to do that too, and he did that beautifully. He found a sweet spot forward on the board that'd eluded him in all our paddle training and indeed in the whole race, and sat that thing right in the curve of every wave while people spazzed out all around us.
That is exactly like the final glorious, redemptive, trimphant conclusion of a Hollywood sports movie. It must have been enormous satisfying fun for you and Tom to be experiencing it. Stoked!
Last edited by foamy on Mon Aug 03, 2015 10:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Nick Carroll » Mon Aug 03, 2015 10:12 am

marauding mullet wrote:Board selection question Nick.
Knowing you have a decent quiver from which to choose, does duck diving ever come into the equation when deciding what board to use on a particular day?
I know for me at least, I've taken a bigger board out on a solid days, to suit the wave size but paid the price trying to get out, it's fcuken hard work.
Ummm not really, I only have a couple of boards that present real duck diving issues and if the conditions are right for those boards I just work around those issues somehow. Like try to flow through things, set up the duck dive early, maybe sometimes use the old roll technique, that sorta thing. Or just be smart about how I get out.

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Nick Carroll » Mon Aug 03, 2015 10:44 am

rmb wrote:Nick have the surf industry and clothing companies discriminated against surfers who speak out against them or have lobbied for better money and conditions for surfers on the WCT. Has the surf industry ever discriminated against surfers reps and have high paid sponsored surfers ever hindered the collective of pro surfers in organising and lobbying for better money in contests?
Well if you don't mind me saying, I think you're pitching the question a bit funny here, I'll have a crack at explaining a bit about it though

When it comes to sponsoring pro surfers, there is no real collective "surf industry" - all the companies are different and deal differently with the athletes. There's also been a huge amount of change in how those dealings are handled over the years, from times when the companies weren't very wealthy and the surfers had no management reps and everyone just sorta blundered through it, to today when every pro surfer has a management structure, deals are highly contracted and sometimes involve a real shit load of money, and a lot of work goes into maintaining that deal so everyone stays happy.

A few things have stayed the same though. One real big recurrent theme is that when the pro surfers stick together, they run the show; the other side of that coin is that when they don't stick together, the money runs the show.

Another is that surfers don't just sorta "speak out against" people who are paying them lots of money, if there is friction between a surfer and a sponsor it's often hard to tell who is responsible, and it doesn't serve anyone's interests to spit the dummy in public over contract issues. It might be entertaining for spectators when someone goes Bobby Martinez postal, but it costs the Bobby a lot more than it costs the spectators. The company looks like a fcukwit if it criticises a popular surfer and the surfer gains a suss rep with potential future employers if he/she starts a war with a previous employer.

There's quite a history of surfers going to bat for better prize money and conditions on tour. Usually the surfers win - again when they stick together. Just a couple of examples of that: The Great Boardshort Debate of 1982 when the pros got together and threatened to boycott events like the Stubbies or the Pipe Masters if the event sponsors tried to force them to wear certain board shorts. The surfers won that one v quickly but it eventually saw the departure of Stubbies and Pipe's old sponsor Offshore Clothing from the tour. Then there was the J Bay Showdown of 2000 when the surfers formed the World Pro Surfers organisation and forced the ASP to double the WCT prize money. That was led by Jake Paterson, Sunny Garcia and Luke Egan and there's no sign any of those guys suffered a backlash by any surf company as a result, even though a couple of the companies had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the deal.

That WPS thing was notable for the part absence of Kelly from the whole deal, he was still on a semi hiatus at the time but could have weighed in but didn't. It didn't stop the momentum of the deal though.

You really saw how this stuff works in the modern world back in 2009. Then, you had one uber powerful pro surfer (Kelly) teaming with his manager and others to promote the idea of a new elite tour. The ASP were obviously horrified but the important players were the surfers; a large majority of 'em were never convinced of the rebel tour's benefits, but they played the ASP off it magnificently and ended up getting a big prize money kick, a reduction in WCT numbers, and a few other things they'd wanted for some time. Kelly was left out in the cold at that point a bit and there's still some coldness between him and some of the old event franchisees as a result.

The second time around, team ZoSea were a lot smarter and put a lot of time into wooing the surfers behind closed doors while they were negotiating to take over the tour. The result was that almost all the surfers were into their plans and backed 'em (especially since even they could see where the surf industry was headed financially - they liked the idea of a US billionaire and a crack at the real pro sport deal a lot better than a shriveling pay packet). The surfers' unquestioning public backing of that switch and their subsequent performances remain the biggest (probably the only) real strength of pro surfing.

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Nick Carroll » Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:10 am

saltman wrote:Nick how does a mature man repair his family - he has made a poor choice (or series of them in my :oops: friends case)
Yet is a sensitive, articulate and intelligent (most of the time) person. And 200% remorseful

Any tips on navigating the road to repair family relationships, particularly of say his daughter, who holds him somewhere between derision and contempt - bearing in mind she is a young adult around 20 yo And makes it very clear she prefers to have no communication with him anymore
Well there's a lot of better people than me to ask that question.

It's a lot harder and takes a lot longer to repair those relationships than it takes to blow 'em up. So your friend really needs to know that it will take a long time and can only be done in bits and pieces and with the eventual co-operation of all involved.

Just from my own experience, your friend should begin with himself -- understanding and resolving the issues around his poor choices, and finding ways to support himself in getting beyond 'em.

As he makes progress with this, he should try to find practical ways to make amends to those people he's clearly hurt through those choices. These might be as simple as always being where you say you'll be at the time you commit to. Or never missing a family support payment if that's what he's having to make. Sheer reliability is a very powerful sign to people over time.

As the people closest to him (i.e. his daughter, perhaps ex partner, etc) begin to let down their guard around him, he should invite them to tell him how they feel about his actions, and learn to listen to what they have to say. This can be very difficult, because if they are honest with him and he is really listening to them, their words will rip away any and all the shards of self-justification he may have built up around his actions. He will feel naked in front of them, possibly irrationally angry, be tempted to react, act out, all sorts of shit. People are terrible at hearing criticism, the instinct is to protect yourself, but if your friend wants to make amends he's going to have to listen to this and respond out of his best self -- really understand the effects of his actions on others. He should get some advice about how to handle this from a professional family therapist.

He will feel deep senses of shame and worthlessness and should try to find ways to replace these feelings with better stuff via practical demonstrations of his value in the world. These don't have to have anything to do with his family, they might involve volunteering in some way, or simply learning to acquire a new skill - a musical instrument, a new language etc. He should also make sure those feelings of shame etc don't develop into spirals of self-loathing, at least not too often, I mean if he is halfway a decent human he will hate parts of himself for what he's done. But if that becomes the dominant feature of his life, he'll be no good to anyone, least of all himself.

Along with that, no self damage, i.e. no habitual drinking, drugs etc, that's a male nightmare in waiting that one.

Time and be good to himself and others, in the end that solves a lot.

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Nick Carroll » Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:16 am

Oh and one more thing, from my own experience, when dealing with this stuff myself, I would often come down to a simple idea of faith that it was worth the effort. Not evidence, just faith in the love and shared effort that'd built the marriage and family in the first place - that it wasn't a waste of time, or wrong somehow in the first place. It doesn't sound like much but it felt like my last line of support in my own heart. Lose faith and you lose hope, and when hope's gone, you got nothing but to put one foot in front of the other. That works too.

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by MrMik » Mon Aug 03, 2015 12:08 pm

Great advice.
Thanks!

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by swvic » Mon Aug 03, 2015 12:30 pm

I'm interested in how much personal stuff you seem to willingly share in here. I can't really frame it into a proper question, but do you derive a benefit or is it enough to think you may possibly be helping others (which I acknowledge might also be a benefit)? There's also the aspect of revealing the personal lives of those close to you. How do you do that without a pre-approval from those people? I imagine you might have an acute sense of where the line is, but that line seems further away for you than it would be for me. When I reveal anything even remotely personal, I'm hiding behind anonymity
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Drailed » Mon Aug 03, 2015 1:05 pm

I have previously asked this question SWVIC but didn't put it as eloquently as you and unfortunately Nick took it as an insult which in no way was it intended.
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by el rancho » Mon Aug 03, 2015 1:08 pm

Swiv are you referring to the time nick publicly shamed his son for getting the dog stoned?

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Nick Carroll » Mon Aug 03, 2015 1:55 pm

swvic wrote:I'm interested in how much personal stuff you seem to willingly share in here. I can't really frame it into a proper question, but do you derive a benefit or is it enough to think you may possibly be helping others (which I acknowledge might also be a benefit)? There's also the aspect of revealing the personal lives of those close to you. How do you do that without a pre-approval from those people? I imagine you might have an acute sense of where the line is, but that line seems further away for you than it would be for me. When I reveal anything even remotely personal, I'm hiding behind anonymity
Ah I think it's probably just a phase swvic. I've spent a lot of my life writing about other people, and at some point recently, when writing that book about Tom and me, I just began to think, how can I do that at all if I'm not willing to do the same to myself? Plus there might be some benefit to people who are asking me something, like saltman just did. I know from his earlier remarks that he is very worried for his son around drug issues and I feel a lot of empathy for him, so I want to answer him truthfully -- it's an extra reason to do that. I do have a sense of where the line is both for me and for members of my family, I don't try to speak for them here.

At times it has made me feel very stupid and sorta young in the head, specially when it's turned around and bitten me as it has done a couple of times, but I'm not all Daily Life about it, like I don't do it in a confessional way nor in an attempt to seek a readership, like how many people look at this thread, maybe 40 or 50? Instead I am trying to be with you guys as I would be with a group of friends, straight up and trusting and not scared of myself in your presence.

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Nick Carroll » Mon Aug 03, 2015 1:59 pm

Oh and I may also be trying stuff out, not super consciously but writers do that, sort of test the waters a bit with ideas and suchlike. I'm not doing that deliberately here but I know how that works, finding a new way to write about things etc.

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