Am I just paranoid, or am I stoned?

Are you a collector of anything? Baseball cards, vintage guns, Star Wars toys, anything? Surfboards? Oh I think I would like to be a collector of first-edition Camus books but am easily duped by frauds and don’t speak French. Also, I think I would like to collect 1974 Porsche 914 Targas and will start as soon as BeachGrit does a multi-year, multi-million dollar content deal with WSL Studios.

While you’re here, and I know you didn’t ask, but I think you should start collecting lightly used vehicles previously owned by lead singers and/or guitarists for Bay Area-based 90s revival punk bands including, but not limited to, Operation Ivy, Rancid, the Offspring and Green Day.

And, right now, there is a great opportunity to purchase Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day’s 1961 Chevrolet Greenbrier surf van as it is being auctioned off by one Mr. Van de Laar with a starting price of $37,995 in New Zealand.

According to the music website NME:

The surf van boasts a customised GRNDAY number plate alongside Armstrong’s signature on the glove box. It also features a State of California Certificate of Title to prove that it was once owned by the frontman.

Van de Laar explained that the van has attracted huge attention in New Zealand, where he’s seen people “waving from the side of the road” after it was imported from California.

“It was Billie Joe’s personal surf van he used in California,” Graham said.

“It is very unique as it is likely to be the only one on the road in New Zealand, and the only one in the world that was once owned by Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong!”

I’m going to be honest, Negatron. If you are aren’t all over this then I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to completely forgive you. Imagine surf hunting on your island’s bountiful coasts and having everyone wave as you pass.

You’d be the most popular surfer in New Zealand and that is a dream, I imagine, that you never imagined fulfilling.

Buy here!

Academy Awards imminent.

The World Surf League is an impossible to conjure gift. Imagine the content we get now, the riches, the bounty, streamed unlimited and free (unless it’s the Tahiti trials then streamed on a broken feed in French). All that beauty, all those angles, the 1989 World Champion in the booth sharing insights as the world’s best surfers ride the world’s best waves.

Oh, you are a bastard if you say those world’s best waves are often world’s besting in less than ideal conditions thanks to round after round of non-elimination surfing. A stone-cold bastard. And you’re also a bastard if you even think that the World Surf League doesn’t continue to have your entertainment in mind each and every day.

For today, the World Surf League’s WSL Studios’ slate of programming was released and, quickly, did you know that WSL Studios has its own logo and is “World Surf League Division?”

I didn’t.

But no matter, you need to know the slate. You want to know the slate. So here you are.

World Surf League Studios Announces Debut Slate of Programming.

Development of Landmark 11-Time World Champion Kelly Slater Documentary

Partnership with the Producers that Created Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’

Creation of WSL Podcast Network

Eat your hearts out, grumpy locals but do you need more?

Today, the newly-formed World Surf League (WSL) Studios unveiled its debut slate of programming. Designed to connect to surf fans as well as appeal to all audiences, the content focuses on telling the transformative stories of surfing, showcasing the incredible lives of the world’s best surfers across all disciplines, as well as using the sport as a window into an array of diverse and fascinating cultures.

The debut slate is comprised of documentaries, docu-series and daily short-form content that is designed for distribution across multiple platforms. The projects feature content with established and award-winning production companies, up-and-coming filmmakers and innovative producers, harnessing their talent, deep knowledge and unique points of view.

“WSL Studios is anchored around storytelling that highlights the raw athleticism of the world’s best surfers, extending through everyday people, and the richness of emotions and narratives that surfing invokes,” said WSL President of Content, Media and WSL Studios, Erik Logan. “With our initial slate, we have endeavored to demonstrate the range of stories that are possible through the Studio and the common passion for people, surfing and the ocean.”

The press release goes on to describe the Kelly Slater Documentary, the creation of a whole podcast network and a big wave thing self-described as “the Free Solo of surfing” though that one doesn’t seem nailed down as, noted, “…director conversations are underway for this project.”

Don’t you love press releases promising uncertain, likely not happening projects?

Hope springs eternal!

I see that smirk, you bastard.

You stone-cold bastard.

Have you ever attended a "surf-in?"

The United States of America’s eastern seaboard is a strange place. As any student of history knows, it was where Puritans from England first landed to set up a colony where they could practice their religion in peace. Things went a little pear-shaped some 150 years later and the descendants of these brave men and women rebelled against the English crown, along with a grab bag of folk from Old Germany, France, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands.

Freedom was won but old ways die hard and many of the towns on that eastern seaboard reflected strange rules and laws from yesteryear. Like, in Maryland it is illegal to wear a sleeveless shirt in a park. In Massachusetts its illegal to own an explosive golf ball. In New Jersey its illegal for a man to knit during fishing season, in Vermont women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth and in Southampton, part of that gilded stretch of New York coastline where the rich and powerful play (think Great Gatsby) it is illegal to surf between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. from June 15 – Sept. 15. And let’s turn to the local media for more.

The surfing community was stunned this week when Southampton Village Police began enforcing a section of the village code that prohibits surfing on a nearly 1-mile stretch of beach between Halsey Neck Lane and Old Town Road, and another small stretch at Fowler Lane during the summer months.

In protest of the move, a petition was created in opposition of the village’s ban, and as of Sunday morning, over 1,900 people had signed it.

“Many of us surfers were told by the police that they would tell us to get out of the ocean and give us tickets if we went in,” the petition read, adding that the fine was up to $1,000. “This understandably caused disruptions and concern among those of us who love the sport. Please support the petition to overturn this ban altogether.”

New York’s favorite gossip page, (6) added…

Those who have enjoyed the surf for years — including Coldplay’s Chris Martin — were told they’d get a $1,000 fine if they defied the ban, in place until Sept. 15.

Martin has often been spotted surfing in the area alone and with his kids.

He was also seen Friday at Surf Lodge in Montauk with girlfriend Dakota Johnson.

I like that Chris Martin and Gwenny Paltrow consciously uncoupled so he can be out and about with Dakota Johnson without causing a stir but back to the issue at hand. If you are the petition signing sort you can, and should, pen your name here.

If you are not and a rebel and/or old school activist you should go, surf and get arrested then ballads will be sung in your name.

Ballads like Free Nelson Mandela but likely less moving.