KL:
You used to write the horoscopes for SG magazine,
what would you draw your predictions from?
P: Oh gosh, I'm kind of a weirdo. I'm not gonna
lie and say I drew my astrology out from my degrees,
or I'm an astrologist or anything. I'm into some
metaphysical stuff, so I just kinda just drew
from that at the time. It was a lot of fun.
KL:
What got you so into Astrology?
PJ: I don't even know, when I was in high school
I was kinda into everything. I used to live in
the library and pull ten books off the shelf and
read them all at once. I just got fascinated by
how they actually went about it, it takes a lot
of knowledge and learning to actually predict
astrology if you're a real astrologer, unlike
myself. But I mean, I've had my charts done, based
on my time of birth and my locations, and I could
say about my personality that those charts have
been pretty accurate, it's kinda scary really.
KL:
Do you find that you generally surround yourself
by certain star signs?
PJ: Um, I know I sometimes base decisions on people's
signs, which is really bad, but I'll be like,
"Oh you're a Leo?!", and they'll ask,
"What does that mean?" and I'll just
have to put my foot in my mouth. I kinda need
to watch that.
KL:
In the Aqua Dulce interview we referred to before,
you spoke about the need in the U.S. for a juniors
program like they have in Australia. Can you explain
what that program is and why we need one so badly?
PJ: Yeah, the juniors programs in Australia, it's
like sport development, showing the surfers the
skills they need to be competitive, and have a
career and be well rounded individuals. Definitely
in our country there's a huge amount of government
funding behind that and in Australia surfing is
a very national sport or past time, so it's easy
to secure that kind of government support. We're
a country that has a lot of government funded
programs, as opposed to America where it comes
back to private business to fund that kind of
stuff. So I think that if it's not gonna come
from the government, then the support should come
from the industry, to develop these people and
to treat it like a sport and a science, so these
people can have a positive path into the future.
That is what's going to keep the industry and
these people's dreams alive.
KL:
Do you think there is a market for a women's pro
tour in the States?
PJ: Definitely. It definitely should be pursued
100%. I think what that comes down to is having
people trying to actively pursue that. You know,
I worked on trying to get an event going, and
we did that, down in Ocean Beach for the women's
world longboard championships. It's not an easy
thing to do, it was a lot of hard work, a lot
of closed doors, but you do get some that are
open, and I think there is a huge possibility
especially in prime time summer months, and with
all the variations of media that are out there
as far as internet, pod casts, TV, cable, everything
like that, there is no reason why that couldn't
take off, that concept.
KL:
If all the sudden you were responsible for the
whole women's pro tour what changes would you
make to help it improve?
PJ: Uh, that's a tricky question. I think it's
doing well on the platform we have at the moment,
I think the biggest symptom of the tour is that
there is a lack of dedicated people working on
certain aspects of it. There is obviously the
top echelon that gets a lot of support, but the
tour that qualifies you to be on that echelon
is very fragmented at times and it's not an easy
task because it's an international tour and there
is a lot of different dynamics as far as the regions
and the business going on there. But I think there
has to be a lot of people working in those regions
to support events, whether they treat them as
grassroots or not. I'd try to just grow bigger
events, and grow on all the strengths. I think
the top girls should definitely be surfing alone
and getting all the media attention and having
a large prize pool so they can actually make a
living. You can't currently make a living off
the prize money of the WCT. I think sometimes
you might need balance between the exotic, sick
waves that we all want to surf, and then we might
need to hold events at major beach destinations
that are touristy. Maybe a women's surf festival,
where it's a combination of longboarding, and
a bit of the girl's best, and an interaction there
where you get everyone on the beach and have variety
to help everyone grow together. I don't think
it would hurt to have that variety, maybe 10 or
20% of the tour be those types of events.
Prue Jeffries
Interview | 1
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