It's a war on Christmas!

This is, undoubtedly, the most wonderful time of the year without concern or regard to your personal “tradition.” Songs about family, togetherness, surprise and joy float upon the airwaves. Food of questionable deliciousness is cooked with love/passive-aggression/stressiness. Pipeline pumps. It might be/could be/should be thought that nothing but nothing can dampen the overwhelming warmth. The feeling of the season.

Nothing save the pre-VAL extra-volume enthusiast blog The Inertia.

We haven’t discussed Venice-adjacent’s other least popular website in sometime due its complete unpopularity and… well complete unpopularity. Even the rare non-Chinese/Indian bot doesn’t attend anymore meaning I don’t see either.

Except today.

For today I was forwarded this.

Happy Holidays, friends!

We know your time is valuable, especially during the holidays. As such, we’ve taken the liberty of curating gift ideas that are a surefire win for the surf and outdoors-lover in your life.

So let’s chat about a gift that’ll actually be put to good use, The FluidStance Balance Board for Standing Desks.

Son of a bitch.

And I cannot begin to think that anyone buying you, the “surfer” in their life would stumble upon The Inertia‘s gift guide but… imagine they did.

Imagine they thought, “My son/friend/daughter/co-worker _________ surfs. They would love the FluidStance Balance Board for Standing Desks.”

Imagine opening it.

I hate The Inertia for even remotely putting you in this position and challenge its founder Zach Weisberg to a duel.

Many years ago, when BeachGrit was but a fledgling newborn, I chatted with Zach at some industry thing. I had made fun of his dumb website lots, by that point, and asked, “Why don’t you ever punch back? We could have such fun!”

His response?

“Why would we? You’re too small.”

Well, little ol’ BeachGrit is now almost four The Inertias big.

Zach?

Duel?

To the death?

Die VAL, die!

And there it is, officially. Your BeachGrit, your snarky, satirical, sometimes grouchy, usually grumpy, always anti-depressive BeachGrit is bigger than the World Surf League. Higher than the Wall of Positive Noise. Throwing all kinds of shade over Santa Monica as well as anything Santa Monica/Venice-adjacent.

The People™ want their ultra hard surf candy.

The People™ crave real, fun, rude, funny, honestly rude more than they love to be Transformed and/or non-elimination heats featuring Deivid Silva and Wade Carmichael.

I’m already drinking in celebration and I suggest you start.

Give us a few more months and we’ll host you somewhere fabulous.

Somewhere VALs get stuck behind the section.

And rum flows like water.

More as the story develops!

Including, but not limited to, the Robinson affair.

I actually don’t believe anyone suggested that famous and beautiful actress Natalie Portman has chemtrail eyes there on Oahu’s bustling North Shore because everyone was too busy weighing in on the Jack Robinson/Zeke Lau affair but don’t you agree that she might? There’s something about the piercing yet far-awayness of her stare. Something about the color and tone that suggests she believes in the airborne conspiracy.

In any case, food for thought.

And David Lee Scales sat across from each other, yesterday, at the most beautiful surf shop in the entire world discussing much about surfing. Discussing where the World Surf League’s President of Media, Content, Studios and Savvy has outwitted us all by jumping off social media first. A visionary. A trailblazer. Discussing Zeke Lau’s official surf category (David Lee says “Power.” I say “No.”)

Discussing if Kelly Slater is the world’s single largest individual polluter.

Rude?

Look at his eyes.

Very suspicious.

I think you will find much value, anyhow, in this episode. Much good. Please enjoy responsibly.

Best to stay out of those sweet waters.

Cackalacky, both North and South, are some of my favorite bits of America. I sometimes wish I was born in that genteel south with an inbred taste for pimento cheese, vinegar-based BBQ sauces and cornflower blue. Those folk know how to live with their Cracker Barrels and she-crab soups, their Oakley Razor Blades affixed to mullet-heads with neon green Croakies. They also know how to surf with their Outer Banks and… I’m sure there’s another surfable stretch of sand somewhere but a certain horrifying beast may be putting an end to all of it, whatever the case, save the pimento cheese.

According to science, it is very rare, extremely rare even, for Great White sharks to stop and park off of North Carolina, preferring to race further north, in order to eat Bostonian Celtics, or take their talents to South Beach and patrol greater Miami for a spell.

Well, a 10 foot-plus man-eater named “Shaw” is bucking all trends and has researches scratching their receding hairlines. The latest from Sea World’s mouthpiece OCEARCH.

Great white sharks are known for racing past the Mid-Atlantic states to get someplace else, so experts pay attention in rare cases when one not only stops, but stays put.

That’s happening now along the Virginia-North Carolina border with a 10-foot, 3-inch male tracked by OCEARCH.

“It’s interesting watching white shark Shaw since unlike other sharks on the Tracker, he has been hanging out off the Virginia coast for over a month,” OCEARCH posted Tuesday on Facebook.

“The other sharks breezed past, only making a quick stop on their way south. What do you suppose he likes so much there?”

OCEARCH offered no ideas in the post. Data collected by OCEARCH suggests young sharks will stay close to their nursery in the first two years of life. However, Shaw is categorized as a “sub-adult,” not a juvenile.

Etc.

And while the researchers may be confounded, surfers are in the crosshairs. Or jawlines, as it were.

Genteel southern surfers should very much reconsider paddling out this winter unless they are paddling out in the relative safety of an inland wave tank.

And as long as  Shaw” is lingering, I think the most understandable thing is to hang that surfboard on the wall until we learn what that man-eater knows and when he knew it.

More as the story develops.