Kim Bradley

Kim Bradley was a surfer.

I know that because I had written a little note to myself. I hate that I did that. I really like forgetting who the person is and then being surprised.

It's fitting though that I'm researching a surfer today. We just got back from the beach. I don't think we saw any surfers though.

We ended up having a nice holiday. It took me a few days to warm up to the place. I have to admit that. But now I find aspects of it that I like. We might return one day.

Onto Mr. Bradley.

I guess I picked someone who is relatively obscure. Lord Wiki doesn't have an entry on him.

Yikes.

Ah. I know why I added him to the list though. I must have seen him in the news. He died a few days before I added him.

Here's an obituary article about him.

He died on 26 March of skin cancer.

His body was cremated.

His nickname was Fly.

What else....

The memorial service thing was held in Bali.

Ah! And he lived in Bali for a long time. He moved there in 1974. He got married. He had children there. He converted to Hinduism.

It seems Bradley is responsible for making surfing popular in Bali.

Well, I'm done with that article. Will I be able to find much more? I hope so.

Here's another article.

When he started surfing in Bali in the 1970's, he pretty much did it alone. The guy was a trend setter, I suppose.

The day he died is a spiritual holiday for Balinese Hindus. It's called Day of Silence. I guess dying on that day is significant?

It took two days for his family to find his body. I used to be scared of that...dying and no one even knowing about it. I mean there are days when we don't have contact with people. Or people call us, and when we don't answer they just assume we're out or busy.

I think thoughts like this can make us paranoid. Usually if I don't hear from someone, I assume they're mad at me. I sometimes tell myself they're just very busy. But then sometimes I start thinking what if they're not busy OR mad. What if they're lying on their kitchen floor dead or in a coma? What if they've been hit by a truck. What if they're dead and buried, and I'm still waiting to get an email from them?

In the 1960's, Bradley surfed in Sydney; the northern beaches. In those days, there wasn't much sunscreen being used. That might be why the guy ended up with skin cancer.

He moved to Bali when he was 19. That was in 1974. So that would mean he was born around 1955.

He apparently smoked.

Bradley had talked about dying while surfing. He said it would be a good way to go. It's sad then that he died alone in his home of skin cancer.

There also seems to be a female cricket player named Kim Bradley.

I have feeling this will be a short entry today.

Oh well.

I'm sure you guys won't complain.

Here's something from a surfing magazine.

It doesn't really give much information. People are asked to leave comments about the guy, but I don't think anyone did. Maybe I'm missing something here.

This article says that although he battled skin cancer for many years, his liver is what ended up killing him. Okay. So he did NOT die of skin cancer then. But he did suffer from it.

Bradley didn't just surf. He made surfboards.

Here's an editorial about Bradley. It's written by his friend Steve Palmer.

Bradley and his friend made a place called Tube Bar. I guess it was a bar for surfers.

This is probably one of the worst posts I've written.

Sorry about that.

Maybe I feel disoriented because I couldn't talk to Lord Wiki about Bradley. Maybe I'm overdependent on Lord Wiki. Maybe we have a codependent relationship. That's probably not a good thing.

Here's an article actually written BEFORE Bradley's death. It says that Bradley didn't start the surfing trend in Bali. It was started by an American named Bob Koke. Well, maybe Koke started it and then Bradley made it more popular. Koke was in Bali way before Bradley arrived. He got there in the 1930's. He might have introduced surfing and then maybe it disappeared until Bradley brought it back again.

Here's a whole article about surfing in Bali.

Is there anyone reading this who has been to Bali? Did you surf there?

I've never been surfing before. It looks fun. I guess.

When I think of surfing I think of Kelsey Grammar. I read his autobiography a few years ago. He was a surfing addict at one point.

Anyway, the surfing in Bali article says that although Bob Koke brought surfing to the area, it didn't catch on. He had all the waves to himself for the most part. Then a few decades later, Bradley came along and he made surfing popular in Bali.

The best beach to go to for beginners is Kuta Beach. That might be handy information for someone....probably not for me though because I don't really plan on going to Bali.

Maybe that's why I'm not having a great amount of fun with this blog entry. It's really more about Bali than Australia. I know Bali is a popular tourist attraction for Australians. So I probably should care. But I don't....at least not that much.

Anyway, I'm going to end this here. I don't really have much else to say. This MIGHT be the shortest biography post I've written.

I just checked. It's 942 words. An average double spaced paper holds 250 words. So that means I wrote about 3 pages. That's pretty skimpy compared to my usual stuff. I feel I should apologize to Kim Bradley. Sorry, surfing dude.

I picked a random entry to compare the Bradley entry with. My Donald Horne entry was 4,965 words. That comes out to about nineteen pages. I can hardly believe I wrote that much in one day.

I'm crazy.